


A View to a Kill

by rosa_himmelblau



Category: Starsky & Hutch, Wiseguy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 15:49:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8719669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosa_himmelblau/pseuds/rosa_himmelblau
Summary: What if Starsky had died when Gunther's guys shot him?And what if Hutch's need for revenge outweighed everything?And what if he met just the wrong man at just the wrong time?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: This story is a crossover. The timelines don't match. I've made no attempt to make them match. Feel free to come up with any explanation you want to make it work for you.
> 
> Caveat lector. Really, don't read this.
> 
> published under the name Paula Alquist
> 
>  
> 
> (Dedication: for that lovely March day)

__

_Meeting you, with a view to a kill  
Face to face, in secret places; feel the chill  
Nightfall covers me,  
But you know the plans I'm making  
Still oversee  
Could it be the whole earth opening wide  
A sacred why? A myst'ry gaping inside  
Until we  
  
Dance into the fire  
That fatal kiss is all we need  
Dance into the fire  
To fatal sounds of broken dreams  
Dance into the fire  
When all we see is the view to a kill  
—A View To A Kill,_ Duran Duran  
  
  
More than anything else, Hutch wanted to be drunk. He stood in the cemetery, staring up at the clouds drizzling rain down on him. Even the sky was crying; everyone was crying but Hutch himself.  
  
It was rain, he told himself, cool and clear, not shower water. He'd stood under a shower—they'd made him stand under a shower, and put on clean clothes. They'd told him to wash Starsky's blood off him, and he'd done it without thinking. Why had he done that? He stared at his hands, his clean hands. Clean. Clean was without Starsky's blood. Clean. It meant nothing. He'd washed Starsky off him, carelessly, without even thinking.  
  
They had all gone. Starsky's mother had tried to insist he come home with her, to meet Starsky's family, to grieve with them, but he couldn't. "It's my fault he's dead," he told her, and though she argued with him, he couldn't hear her words, only their blood-tinged echoes. He knew what he wanted, and he didn't want to do it in Starsky's mother's house. All he had to do was get back in his burgundy rental car, drive back to the airport, and sit in a bar, drinking until his plane took off. He looked at his watch: twelve-fourteen. He searched his pockets for his plane ticket, found his departure time: four-ten. Plenty of time.  
  
He started driving, heading for the airport. JFK, formerly Idlewild. Starsky hadn't liked the change—he'd still been complaining about it every time he flew home. "It's not that I didn't think they should do something, he was the president, but Idlewild's such a cool word, Hutch, wha'd they wanna go'n' change it for?" Hutch had never been in that airport before this trip.  
  
But he got distracted, driving back. The coppery skyline captured him with its promises of all the places Starsky had wanted him to see. Hutch could still see them, but not through his partner's eyes. Not anymore. Now everything he saw was stained the brick red of drying blood.  
  
He couldn't keep looking at it, so he started making turns, dangerous, sudden veers off from where he was supposed to go, without bothering to signal. He wouldn't go back to Idlewild; he'd drive wherever he could where there was an airport, get a plane out from there.  
  
He thought he was heading for Newark, but somehow he ended up in Atlantic City—as good a place to get drunk as any. He threw his plane ticket out the window. What was the point of getting on a plane to go back to some blood-stained place where Starsky wasn't?  
  
Atlantic City wasn't Las Vegas. Las Vegas wanted to seduce you, fuck you, and leave you at the curb with the rest of the night's empties. Atlantic City wanted to be your girlfriend, wanted you to come back, and bring your mother. Las Vegas was Ginger, the movie star; Atlantic City was Mary Ann wearing Ginger's boa, her hair pinned up. Las Vegas was—  
  
Hutch made himself stop making stupid comparisons meant to keep him from thinking about Starsky and himself in Las Vegas. What difference did it make where he thought about Starsky, when all he could think about was Starsky?  
  
The only important thing was that you could drink in AC, and as long as you didn't get disorderly, you could probably stay 'til your money ran out. Hutch didn't have to worry about that happening anytime this decade. So he stopped at the first casino he came to, gave his car keys to the parking valet, and went inside.  
  
He started off just drinking, but eventually the gambling drew him. It wasn't fun he was looking for, or money, or excitement, it was distraction. Sitting at a bar, drinking, left his mind too little to do, and it filled itself with one phrase, one eternally-repeated phrase, "Starsky would—" Starsky would love that, Starsky would hate that, Starsky would want, Starsky would say, Starsky would, Starsky would, Starsky would—  
  
Starsky would bleed to death in Metro's parking lot while the ambulance was stuck in traffic and his partner went insane.  
  
*  
  
Standing at the roulette wheel, playing red spin after spin after spin, it didn't take Hutch long to lose and drink up his ready cash. He inquired about an ATM, amazed at how steady and normal his voice sounded. Could anyone tell he was drunk?  
  
He folded the wad of cash into his wallet and was walking back to the casino when the newspaper headline caught his eye: LAW  & MOB vs. SONNY STEELGRAVE—ROUND 2. Hutch walked over to the newspaper box and saw that the next paper had started to slip out when the last one was taken, and that the door hadn't re-fastened properly. He jerked the door open and took the paper out.  
  
Below the fold was a picture, and more details. The Royal Diamond Hotel and Casino was mob-controlled, run by Sonny Steelgrave, who was under investigation, and had been for some time. He'd been called before a Senate investigating committee the summer before—the summer before, when Starsky had insisted on renting that boat so he and Hutch could sail around Catalina. Steelgrave had been involved in some sort of gun-running operation that had resulted in the deaths of eight police officers. He was being investigated for ties to the murder of an FBI agent. He'd tried to kill a district attorney. Hutch didn't care about any of that; he could think of a DA or two he wouldn't mind seeing dead in an alley. What mattered was he was connected to the East Coast mob, to the same Commission one James Marshall Gunther had gone to war with and beaten out of some very valuable territory. These guys hated Gunther nearly as much as Hutch did.  
  
No longer interested in increasing his intoxication, Hutch went looking for the Royal Diamond. It didn't take long to find, and he wasn't surprised by its monolithic resemblance to Gunther's own building. Hutch went inside, looking like he knew what he was doing, where he was going, hoping no one stopped him. He found the elevator, and punched the button to take him to the business offices. It was only just after four. Steelgrave should still be there.  
  
*  
  
The first thing Sonny knew was, the man was drunk. He could hear him through the open door, arguing with Sally. He looked over at Vinnie, who had also turned to look at the doorway. "What the fuck?" Sonny tilted his head at the doorway. "Go look," he ordered, and got up to watch.  
  
My God, the man's fair-skinned. Sonny had to resist the urge to warn him to stay off the beach. He was holding up a badge, a gold one, but he wasn't a New York or a Jersey cop, he was from—Los Angeles? What the fuck?  
  
"What's the problem here?" Vinnie playing tough guy, Mr. Security. Sonny leaned against the doorjamb.  
  
"Are you Steelgrave?"  
  
Vinnie put his hand on the man's shoulder. "C'm'on, buddy, you don't belong here. Why don'tcha go someplace and sober up?"  
  
The man's cold stare didn't seem to mean anything to Vinnie. Probably just another game, two cops playing together. The anger overtook Sonny again, and he started to turn away so he wouldn't have to look at Vinnie. Vinnie the liar, Vinnie the rat bastard, Vinnie the best piece of ass on the Atlantic seaboard, Vinnie the cop.  
  
Fuck Vinnie.  
  
Yeah, well.  
  
"You're Steelgrave." The blond cop's voice stopped him and Sonny turned back to face him; it wasn't a question. They looked at each other, then the cop looked at Vinnie and shook his head. He shrugged Vinnie's hand off his shoulder, walked to the elevator and punched the down button. They—Sonny, Vinnie, and Sally—stood and watched him wait for it to arrive.  
  
When it did, Sonny nudged Vinnie. "Vinnie, take the gentleman out, get rid of him." As Vinnie began to move toward the elevator, Sonny added, "Permanently." On Vinnie's fearful look, Sonny smiled. "Or just make sure he finds his way out." He shrugged. "Your call." Vinnie nodded and hurried over to get in the elevator before the doors closed. Sonny went back into his office, closing the door behind him.  
  
His Vinnie would have thought some drunken LA cop showing up was hilarious, they'd have had a few laughs over it, but his Vinnie didn't exist. And when this one got back, they'd pretend to share a laugh. Sonny wondered how long he could go on like this.  
  
It was a good thing that cop had shown up. Sonny had been so close to confronting Terranova, so close to punching his ticket. He'd known for the last two days that Terranova was a fed, but the rat bastard had no idea Sonny had overheard him checking in. Fortunately, Sonny had been unable to believe the truth of the situation immediately. Fortunately, by the time he could believe it, Terranova was in Brooklyn with that sweet blonde thing he'd picked up one Sunday after Mass, and that gave Sonny time to think, to realize he couldn't just kill Terranova.  
  
That didn't tell him what he could do, it just left him in an unbearable state of limbo.  
  
*  
  
Hutch rode down in the elevator, eyeing the other man. "Vinnie. You're name's Vincenzo then, right?"  
  
"Yeah, you figured that out real good." He was being deliberately unfriendly, not that there was anything odd about that, except—there was something odd about it, about all of it. Hutch just couldn't figure out what it was.  
  
Hutch had seen the moment of fear in Vincenzo's eyes when Steelgrave told him to whack him, and the moment of spiteful delight in Steelgrave's when he'd said it, and even drunk as he was, he knew something wasn't right. Vinnie was Vinnie Terranova, and Hutch had read about him, too; he was Steelgrave's right hand, which meant paid muscle. Guys like that didn't mind getting their hands dirty, that was how they got where they did. Vinnie Terranova was not what he seemed to be.  
  
Hutch didn't like looking at him; the blue eyes and dark hair mocked him. For a moment he stared down at his blood-soaked hands. No, he looked nothing like Starsky. Nothing like Starsky.  
  
They'd reached the lobby. "You worked here long?" Hutch asked as they walked toward the exit.  
  
"If you wanted a job, you came to the wrong place, and shouldn't ought'a have flashed that badge." His tone was aggressively dismissive. He sounded like the stereotypical wiseguy, but—something was off. Something was wrong, and if he hadn't been so drunk, Hutch would've known what it was.  
  
"I'll remember that next time," Hutch said, stepping out into the sunshine.  
  
*  
  
The next morning Hutch was back at the casino. He'd spent the night in his rental car, not because he couldn't afford a room, but because he found it easier to sleep in inappropriate places. If you wanted to call drinking until you passed out 'sleeping.' In between slugs of the beautiful, burning liquid, Hutch went over every second of his short time with Steelgrave . . . and Terranova. He might be drunk—hell, no might be about it, he was drunk—but Hutch's intuition told him two things: that Terranova was a cop, and that Steelgrave knew. It would be crazy to lead with that hunch, but as a back-up, maybe, maybe. What did he have to lose?  
  
Hutch went back to Steelgrave's office. He knew he looked the worse for wear, but he was sort of sober. That ought to help.  
  
"I want to make an appointment to see Mr. Steelgrave," he told the same secretary he'd seen the day before. She looked at him a little nervously.  
  
"Just a moment," and she pressed the intercom button. When Steelgrave answered, she said, "Mr. Steelgrave, the man from yesterday is back, asking for an appointment."  
  
Hutch heard Sonny swear, then laugh. "Send him in, whoever he is."  
  
*  
  
Sonny stood up as he heard yesterday's drunken stranger approach, prepared to make a joke at this invader's expense and send him on his way—this time more forcefully.  
  
He held a crumpled copy of The New Jersey Globe, yesterday's issue, one with Sonny's picture on the front page—again. Sonny'd gotten so used to seeing his picture in the paper, he hadn't even noticed until Sally pointed it out. Who the hell was this drunk? And what did he want, an autograph?  
  
"You're Steelgrave." Once again, it wasn't a question.  
  
"I know who I am. What I don't know is who you are, and what you want here."  
  
He closed the door, then tossed his badge and I.D. down on Sonny's desk, grabbed a chair and pulled it up close and sat down. "Like I said yesterday, I'm a cop—it's all there. I've got a proposal to make, and I'm going to lay out all the particulars so you know it's not a set-up and that I'm not wired."  
  
Bemused, Sonny sat down. "Go for it."  
  
"I want you to kill James Marshall Gunther." His mouth slid over the name with a kind of lingering distaste. "I'll give you any information you need to do it cleanly, and I'll pay any price you ask." He sort of smiled to himself. "I figure if you're the one who takes him out, you'll be the one to take over his action. Have I got that right?"  
  
"What's in it for you?" Sonny asked. He had picked up the I.D. folder and was looking at it. Kenneth Hutchinson, Detective Sergeant, Los Angeles Police Department. He had a gold shield, some kind of hero. The picture wasn't old but he'd aged a lot since it was taken six months ago.  
  
"He'll be dead. That's all I care about, that he's dead. I'd do it myself, but I can't get close to him anymore."  
  
"Anymore? What's that mean?"  
  
"It means I tried to strangle him with my bare hands, only they pulled me off." The look on his face was disturbing as hell; he talked about killing James Gunther the way most guys talk about the best lay they've ever had.  
  
"Yeah? What'd he do to you?"  
  
"He had my partner killed."  
  
"And they don't do anything about that in Los Angeles? You gotta come here? Some kinda city you got there, they don't care about cop killers."  
  
"Oh, they care if the perp's black, or poor, or a junkie. They care if he's going to be represented by a public defender because he can't afford his own lawyer. They care if he's young and delinquent, or if he's indigent. But if he dines with the Rockefellers, if he—"  
  
Sonny could get this kind of blather from the local politicians. He didn't need some lush from the West Coast hand delivering it to his office. "Why me?" he interrupted.  
  
"—what's one good cop, more or less?" Hutchinson finished his speech, apparently not realizing he'd been interrupted. "What?"  
  
"Why me? What makes you think I'd want to kill anybody?"  
  
"According to this—" Hutchinson tapped the newspaper "—you tried to blow up the District Attorney." And he started laughing.  
  
Sonny wasn't amused. "That was a set-up!"  
  
"I don't care! Except, a booby-trapped pizza won't work on Gunther. You'd have to put plastique in his pate."  
  
"That rag's the reason you're here? You know where the door is."  
  
"The reason I'm here is, I read your name on the front page of this paper while I was standing practically outside the front door of your hotel."  
  
"Divine providence?" Sonny was amused by this.  
  
Hutchinson shook his head. "There's nothing divine about this, but I don't care. I know about the war you guys had with Gunther, and I know you don't forgive, and you don't let go. Neither do I. I want him dead. You can do that for me. I'll pay whatever you want, I'll do whatever you want. I'll do anything, just name your price."  
  
Sonny saw behind those blue, blue eyes the same frenzied, psychotic creature that was living inside him, the one that wanted to kill Terranova but couldn't, that could only satisfy itself by trying to fuck him to death. Hutchinson's demon was feeding on the idea of revenge; the real thing might kill it, or it might make it hungrier. Either way, this deal could be to Sonny's advantage.  
  
"Anything?" he asked, wondering if Hutchinson knew he was selling his soul.  
  
"Anything." Hutchinson smiled at him strangely. "I'll even start by killing Terranova for you."  
  
*  
  
Settled in his fancy penthouse suite, Hutch wondered just how crazy Steelgrave really was. Very, would be his best guess. While his own offer had been sincerely made, in the cool, hung-over light of day, he could see how bananas it was. What in the name of God had made Steelgrave take him seriously?  
  
He was just out of the fancy coral-colored shower, standing in front of the bathroom mirror, a disposable razor in his hand. He'd shaved off his mustache for Starsky's funeral, and now he was trying to decide whether or not to let it grow back. Weirdly, what was making this decision more complicated than it should be was wondering what Steelgrave's opinion on the subject would be.  
  
"What the hell makes you think he cares?"  
  
The way Steelgrave looked at his mouth . . . .  
  
Steelgrave wasn't the first man to look at him that way. Hutch knew what it meant. He scraped the razor blade across his face, avoiding his upper lip carefully.  
  
*  
  
Sonny watched Vinnie sleep.  
  
He didn't know what had made him go after Vinnie; he'd never felt a hunger like that before in his life, had never looked at another man with lust. It was a dangerous game, but the danger made the sex even more exciting. He'd thought Vinnie was the only man he could look at that way, and that was one reason he'd hated the idea of killing him. Part of him wanted to get this out of his system, fuck Terranova until he'd memorized him and was bored with him; then he could easily dispose of him. Part of him wished, in deep, dark secret, that his Vinnie would come back. That that couldn't happen—that his Vinnie was as make-believe as Puff—was something he couldn't quite believe. Maybe when Vinnie was gone, he'd be able to.  
  
Sonny got out of bed quietly, not wanting to wake Vinnie, not wanting those angel eyes open, looking at him, memorizing the things he did so he could report back to whoever the fuck he reported back to.  
  
Who was he kidding? Sonny knew who Vinnie reported to; it had just been easier to think of it as an anonymous They instead of that creep, McPike. But now, seeing that maybe Vinnie's heavenly blue eyes weren't the only ones in town, Sonny didn't care so much who Vinnie was blabbing to. He hadn't told Vinnie that Hutchinson had come back, certainly hadn't told him that he'd put him up in one of the penthouses. Let him find that out on his own. Let him wonder.  
  
*  
  
Steelgrave had swept Hutch's badge and ID into his desk drawer and locked it. "Come with me."  
  
"What do I say if someone wants to know what I'm doing here?"  
  
"You know how to say mind your own business?" Steelgrave asked. Hutch gave him that same cold look, which Steelgrave took as his answer. "Yeah, that ought'a do it."  
  
"We've got a deal?"  
  
"We got nothing. You come with me. I want to talk to you again when you're sober—and not hung over."  
  
The next thing Hutch knew, he was ensconced in a penthouse apartment with a view, as they say, to die for.  
  
"Stay here," Steelgrave ordered. "Don't come out 'til you've dried out. I see you drunk again, you're out on your ass for good." Steelgrave had been on his way out the door when he'd turned suddenly, adding, "You need anything, call room service." Hutch had had the feeling he wanted to say more, but Steelgrave had only raked him with his eyes, turned, and left.  
  
Hutch knew what he'd been thinking, and it made him feel—nothing. He told himself he was still feeling yesterday's drunk, and that was why, but now, clean and sober, he still felt nothing. The price for Gunther was going to be high, but he'd pay it, and pay it, and pay it. And maybe he wouldn't mind.  
  
*  
  
Vinnie knew something was up. Sonny was enjoying himself, watching Vinnie worry and wonder. He knew Hutchinson was in the west penthouse, but he didn't know why. When he asked, Sonny told him that he was the one who was always saying they should play it cozier with the cops. "And officially this guy's nothing here, gold shield or not—he's just some drunken tourist. So I put him up on my dime, what's it to you? I like his chutzpah. You remember that about me, right?"  
  
And what could Terranova say? "Am I being replaced?"  
  
You didn't think you could be, did you? Think again, you rat bastard.  
  
"You got any plans for dinner?" he asked casually, and when Vinnie told him he didn't, Sonny smiled. "Then you won't mind taking a ride out to Philly for me. I'd do it myself, but I've got plans of my own."  
  
There was real disappointment in Vinnie's face, even though he was doing the work both Sonny and the government were paying him for.  
  
Sonny walked around his desk, over to where Vinnie sat, and ran his hand across the broad shoulders. "I'd invite you along, but you know, three's a crowd." The regret in his voice was almost genuine.  
  
*  
  
"What makes you think I want you to kill Terranova?" Steelgrave asked. "You're the one who came looking to have someone killed."  
  
Hutch didn't say what he was thinking—that he could see himself in Steelgrave's eyes, that there was an anger and betrayal there that were the mirror image of his own. "What else would be enough payment for you to listen to this crazy idea of mine?" It was a good, logical answer, and Steelgrave smiled a "you got me" smile. He poured himself some more wine before he answered.  
  
"I've done my homework on you—and your late partner. I know what's in the official records, and I know what's on the street about you." Steelgrave paused to let the implications of what he'd discovered settle in, and Hutch waited in silence.  
  
He and Starsky had discussed how they'd handle it if they were ever found out; now, with Starsky gone—dead—there was nothing to discuss. He would not deny his partner, would not betray him, not even by omission. "Are you asking me a question?" he said quietly, keeping his gaze riveted on Steelgrave. "If you're asking if what you heard is true, the answer is yes. It's all true. Even the lies are true, even the things people made up about us—even the things they were saying before it was true, are true. All of it. If you think that means I can't get the job done—"  
  
Sonny held up his hand to silence Hutch. "I wasn't asking a question," he said, sounding a little amused. "I wanted you to know I know."  
  
Hutch shrugged. "You know." He'd found he'd lost all pride, and with it, all shame. He no longer cared what anyone knew, or thought they knew.  
  
"I know all about how he died, and how you tried to kill Gunther. I know about the restraining order. I know about everything." Steelgrave's voice dipped to a low, dirty place. "If you've done it, I know about it. I know you were a big cop hero, and now you're here trying to sell me your honor and your gold shield. So even if I didn't know, I'd know." He took a sip of his wine, then, suddenly, drained the glass. "What I don't know is why I should trust you."  
  
"Because the gold shield, and the honor, and the fucking suit of armor don't mean anything to me anymore. The only thing I want is what I can't have, so I'm willing to settle for revenge."  
  
Hutch was astonished by the harsh sound of his own voice, but he seemed to convince Steelgrave. He filled his glass again, and Hutch's. "You're right about Terranova. I need him gotten rid of."  
  
"Why haven't you killed him already?" Hutch asked. It was a day for asking questions he never expected to.  
  
"I wanted to," Steelgrave admitted. "Good thing I had time to think it over."  
  
"What was there to think about?"  
  
"I've got a fed living under my roof. If I get rid of him, there's an investigation. If I get rid of him well enough, that's no problem—your guys can't touch me without proof."  
  
"They're not my guys anymore," Hutch muttered, but Steelgrave went on talking.  
  
"But that doesn't do me any good. Because as soon as you start investigating, it all shows up on the front pages of those newspapers you're so crazy about. Then my guys know about it, and even if it's not true, and even if there's no proof—like you said, even if it's not true, it's true. And even if I've got rid of him nice and clean—I'm the next one who disappears, and the only time my name is mentioned is as an object lesson." He helped himself to more of the prime rib, offered Hutch another slice. "Besides, he still has his uses. You don't get rid of a valuable employee until you've replaced him."  
  
Hutch felt a shiver go through him, straight to his soul. He hadn't been wrong about that look. "Got a replacement lined up?" he asked casually, helping himself to more broccoli. He hadn't expected Steelgrave to join him for dinner, but he'd found the red-tableclothed cart room service had brought up contained more than enough for two, and had further found that Steelgrave believed owning a key was the same as an invitation to come in.  
  
"You don't mind killing a fed?" Steelgrave asked, sounding genuinely surprised.  
  
"I've met one or two I wouldn't've minded killing even without the quid pro quo," Hutch said with a smile.  
  
"A fed or two. That's exactly what I want." He took his napkin from his lap, wiped his mouth with it, and tossed it onto the table, then got up and moved to the dark red sofa. "He knows you're staying here, but he can't figure out why. He doesn't believe what I've told him—"  
  
"What have you told him?" Hutch asked, and on Sonny's sharp look, "We ought to get our stories straight."  
  
"I'm letting you stay as a sign of goodwill," and as soon as the words were out of his mouth, Hutch was laughing. Sonny didn't seem amused. "One good thing is, I don't have to worry about him telling anybody that matters. Last thing I need is everybody in town knowing I've got a cop shacked up in my place. People will start thinking I've started a collection." Steelgrave smiled, eyes fixed firmly on Hutch's mouth. "But who knows, maybe after this is all over I will start my own collection."  
  
Hutch poured the rest of the wine into their glasses, and handed Steelgrave his, joining him on the dark red sofa. "Yeah? How many penthouses you got, anyway? Or shouldn't I ask?"  
  
"Some things it's better not to know."  
  
They sipped their wine in silence. When his glass was empty, Steelgrave said, "Terranova. Vincent Michael Terranova. He was born not too far from where your Starsky was. I'd like him planted the same way."  
  
Something shuddered inside Hutch, at the sound of Starsky's name on Steelgrave's lips. Your Starsky. No one had ever called him that before.  
  
"It was always 'Starsky,' wasn't it? You never called him David. Not in public, anyway. A couple of my sources commented on that, thought it was odd, considering how close you were. But I'm betting you never called him that in bed, either."  
  
Something was supposed to be happening; Steelgrave was leaning toward him, trying to provoke something, some kind of reaction, something—  
  
And something was happening, but not what Steelgrave was going for. Instead of—anger? Rage?—what Hutch was feeling was nostalgia, as if Steelgrave was showing him a movie of his life with Starsky, reading excerpts from their biography, bright, beautiful blue stories without a hint of red in them.  
  
"I never called him David," he agreed simply.  
  
It seemed to be enough. Steelgrave leaned back. "I want Terranova dead," he reiterated.  
  
Earlier in the day, while Steelgrave was in his office working, there had been a knock on the door. Hutch had gone to listen, but had not said anything, and eventually the man on the other side had called out, said he was a tailor, sent up by Mr. Steelgrave. Hutch had let him in, and had spent the next hour being meticulously measured from throat to ankle. Now, sitting across the table from Steelgrave, he was wearing a brand new suit, the blue of the fabric so dark it almost slipped over into black. The shoes were new, too, and so was everything else he wore, and they all fit like the proverbial glove. Hutch could see Steelgrave admiring—something. The fabric? The workmanship? Or what he knew was underneath?  
  
"I meant to thank you for this," Hutch said, standing up and stretching just the slightest bit. Steelgrave's eyes acknowledged his words. Hutch stretched a little more, running a hand through his own hair. "Though, I gotta tell you, I feel a little constrained."  
  
"Make yourself comfortable," Steelgrave offered expansively, and Hutch took off his jacket, draping it across the back of the dark red sofa. It would not do to treat this present carelessly. He kicked his shoes off, then bent and picked them up, carrying them into the bedroom and putting them away in the closet. He stayed in there, waiting, until finally Steelgrave followed.  
  
He started with his vermilion tie, loosening it, then moving to unbuckle his belt, pull off his socks. Then back to take the tie off completely, and hang it over the back of a chair. For a moment he watched it, a runnel of blood suspended in space, waiting to fall. Then he moved to his shirt, unbuttoning but not removing it.  
  
Steelgrave's fascination filled the air, made it heavy and portentous, as if a storm were brewing. And, Hutch thought, there might be. Mixed with his desire was a dark, deadly fear. If this was forbidden in the world Starsky and he had lived in, it was abomination in Steelgrave's world. And what was going on between Steelgrave and Terranova wasn't just sex; Steelgrave was too fucked up.  
  
So was this love conceived amidst betrayal Steelgrave's first? If so, Hutch had drawn the job, was making him rewrite his definition of himself. If he wasn't ready to do that, the consequences could get ugly.  
  
Aren't you doing the same thing? It was Starsky's voice asking the question. You always said I was the only one—  
  
You were, babe, you were the only one, you're still the only one—  
  
Then this is just an act, and that wood in your pants—well, you're a real Method man, am I right?  
  
No. No, it's real. But I'm rewriting my definition, too, in shades of scarlet. The whole book of me was erased when they zipped you into that body bag, erased by your blood. That man loved you more than heaven and earth—and so does this one. This one's just a different guy. He wants revenge, and he's got a yen to play with fire; being scalded might remind him he's alive.  
  
There was nothing flamboyant about the way Hutch undressed; he didn't flaunt himself. That could too easily look foolish, Steelgrave could too easily think he was being made fun of. Instead, Hutch took off his clothes the way he always did, only a little slower. He gave Steelgrave every opportunity to look to his heart's content, to enjoy what he saw just as unselfconsciously as Hutch was displaying himself. Starsky had always loved looking at him, had called him—  
  
So many things. Hutch pushed those endearments away. What would Starsky think of him, for doing this? I wouldn't do any less for you, came the sure and certain reply. I loved you as much as you love me, as crazy as you love me.  
  
Hutch was down to his shorts, the red silk ones that had arrived with the suit—ones Steelgrave had picked out? He slid his thumbs into the waistband, slowly, slowly bringing them down, watching as Steelgrave devoured him with his eyes. He was staring at the red silk as if expecting some act of sorcery, and Hutch didn't disappoint him. He was fully erect, what Starsky had called an impressive sight, and Steelgrave seemed to agree with him; he looked more intoxicated than he could have gotten on the two glasses of wine he'd had; he looked woozy, light-headed.  
  
"Like what you see?" Hutch asked, his voice low.  
  
Sonny tore his eyes away from Hutchinson's crotch to meet eyes blue as a summer sky, and filled with everything Sonny was feeling. He was an occasion of sin come in the guise of an avenging angel—or was it a disguise? Sonny didn't know, didn't care. This was forbidden fruit he'd been starved for without ever knowing it existed.  
  
It has never mattered to him what color a broad's hair was, but for some reason this man's blondness was like a jolt of some kind of high-octane aphrodisiac. No, he had never seen anything like this, not in a man. And everything about him, the way he stood, the way he absorbed Sonny's gaze, saying nothing, told Sonny that he wanted this. He wanted it, and he wasn't ashamed. Nothing like Vinnie, who always dressed and undressed like he had something to hide. And didn't he? But what he was hiding wasn't under his clothes, it was behind those angel eyes.  
  
There was nothing hiding behind Hutchinson's eyes. Everything—good, bad, crazy, noble—was right there, pouring out. "Well?" he asked. Sonny didn't know how long he'd been staring at him, lost in him.  
  
"Well, what?"  
  
Hutch half-laughed. "Well, is looking at me all you came here to do?"  
  
"What do you want me to do?" Sonny wanted to hear him say the words.  
  
"I want you to fuck me." Not a whisper. He wasn't ashamed. "I need you to fuck me."  
  
But Sonny wanted more than that. He didn't know why; in this moment, he didn't care why. How far over the line could he take this? "Like your Starsky did?  
  
But Hutchinson didn't seem to have a line to cross; he just stared into Sonny's eyes, unafraid but not untouched. "No, not like Starsky did. Like you do." He moved closer, took hold of Sonny's tie, running his fingers down it appreciatively. "You **could** leave this on, but I'm afraid it would get . . . mussed."  
  
There was something in his tone that irritated Sonny. Hutchinson softened the teasing words with a smile and began undoing the tie. "You're underpaying your tailor," he murmured, leaning close to Sonny's ear as he unbuttoned his shirt.  
  
"How would **you** know?" Maybe it wasn't irritation; maybe it was just an itch . . . .  
  
"You saw the way my suit was cut," Hutchinson's voice had fallen to a whisper. "I've seen the way yours are. You couldn't get better on Jermyn Street." Both the jacket and shirt were open, but Hutchinson didn't move to take them off. Instead he dropped to his knees and began to untie Sonny's shoes. He slipped them off, and the socks, then took one of Sonny's hands in his. He found the cufflink at his wrist and unfastened it. "Starsky used to—" Hutchinson froze; literally, it was like watching a stopped film, he simply knelt there, one hand holding Sonny's wrist, the other cupping the cufflink.  
  
A stream of compassion lost out against a downpour of need; Sonny had to know what Starsky used to. "Used to what?" he asked—no, demanded. Tell me what he used to.  
  
Hutchinson's eyes met his, wide with sadness and surprise.  
  
"Used to what?" Sonny repeated, using the compassion to color his voice and feed his need.  
  
Hutchinson's hand closed over the cufflink. "He." That was all he said; he seemed to be waiting for something. Then he took a deep breath. "He used to drop these in his pocket. Neither of us wore them very often, but when we did, at least one pair would end up in Starsky's pants pocket." Hutchinson's eyes left his as he carefully placed the cufflink on the table and took Sonny's other wrist in his strong fingers. "I don't want to talk about Starsky," he said in a very small voice as he unfastened the other cufflink. He was begging Sonny not to ask, because if Sonny asked—whatever Sonny asked. Sonny reached out to touch that miraculous hair.  
  
"You don't have to." The hair was as soft as it was light. Sonny's fingers were as enthralled as his eyes.  
  
Hutchinson nodded, recovering himself. After a moment he told Sonny to stand up.  
  
When he did, his belt was unbuckled, his pants were unzipped. He was still fully dressed, but everything was loose, ready, waiting. Hutchinson stood up again, with a grace Sonny couldn't imagine Vinnie ever coming close to, and a weird pang hit him; he admired this man's agility, but he had loved Vinnie's ungainliness. It made no sense.  
  
Hutchinson walked around behind Sonny, removed his jacket like a good valet, then—nothing. Sonny turned around abruptly to see what he was doing and caught Hutchinson's admiring gaze. The trajectory of that gaze had been south of his belt. Sonny felt himself blush, but Hutchinson's hands were on him, sliding off his shirt, and then he was on his knees again and Sonny's pants were drifting downward. He stepped out of them and Hutchinson pushed them out of the way. Sonny was down to his shorts, and Hutchinson was just kneeling there, as if in adoration. "Of course," and Sonny could barely hear him, "maybe he isn't in it for the money. Your tailor," Hutchinson elaborated. "Maybe he just enjoys his work."  
  
"You're beautiful." Sonny said the words without thinking, as though they were something he'd tripped over.  
  
Hutchinson smiled sardonically as he stood up, and Sonny wondered how many times he'd heard those words, how many others, how many times Starsky had said them to him. He didn't want to think about someone anyone else touching this golden beauty. Sonny felt paralyzed by his own arousal; he wanted this man so much a simple touch would detonate him.  
  
"Eye of the beholder," Hutch murmured, leaned forward and letting his lips graze Sonny's cheek. Sonny gasped.  
  
"I want to touch you; I want you to touch me." Hutchinson's words screamed with the need to make a human connection. "I want you to know where I stand. I want you to know who I am." He stopped, sighing. "I want you to fuck me," he said again. "You want to do it here, on the floor, or—"  
  
Sonny shoved him, hard, backwards toward the bedroom. "Get in there!" His voice was hoarse; his heart was trip-hammering. Hutchinson complied, chuckling a little under his breath.  
  
*  
  
Hutchinson was—  
  
Hutchinson was—was—  
  
Hutchinson was different. Different from Vinnie, different from anyone he'd ever imagined; different.  
  
Vinnie had played beta wolf, had rolled over for Sonny for his own reasons. He'd played at submission, had offered up his ass to make his case. Hutchinson—  
  
was doing the same thing, wasn't he? Not for a case, and he wasn't lying about it, but wasn't it the same thing?  
  
Except it wasn't. Hutchinson wanted this bad, wanted Sonny the way he wanted oxygen. Their first kiss had Hutchinson's legs spread, had his hands at Sonny's waistband, tearing his shorts off, and then Sonny was being groped and squeezed, Hutchinson practically hyperventilating as he rubbed against him. He moaned when Sonny pulled away, but when Sonny told him to turn over, he scrambled over in a second, offering himself up, not even protesting as Sonny tore into him.  
  
*  
  
Sonny was as ungentle as it seemed possible to be, and for Hutch that made it perfect. He needed Sonny's violence, he needed his passion, but he didn't want anybody else's love. He'd had love.  
  
It didn't last long; neither of them could hold off long enough to make it last long. Sonny came, and in a moment, so did Hutch. They stayed still, together, for a few minutes, then Sonny kissed his neck, his shoulder, and pulled away.  
  
They settled themselves together comfortably, still breathing hard.  
  
Sonny was the first one to speak. "Was that your first payment?" he asked.  
  
"That? No. That was—a pact. Blood brothers." It was always blood, the world was covered in blood.  
  
"Half a pact, then," Sonny murmured, not sure how anxious he was to seal the deal.  
  
"More complicated than that. Starsky's blood came first, and now mine. Next will be Vinnie's—you can drink it if you want to, bathe in it while I watch. Then McPike's, and Gunther's."  
  
"And what about mine?" Sonny asked, perplexed, relieved, forsaken.  
  
"When it's all done, and then it's up to you. We close the circle, or we say goodbye." Hutch sighed deeply. "It's up to you," he said again.  
  
But Sonny couldn't sleep yet. "Hutch." He tried out the name. "Hutch. Never Ken."  
  
"My family calls me Ken, my wife did." Hutch's voice sounded sleepy.  
  
"But not your Starsky." Sonny couldn't quite get a hold of how he felt. He wanted to own this man, but he couldn't do that without owning his dead partner.  
  
"Nope. Not my Starsky."  
  
"Why him?" Why me? Wondering when Hutch would refuse him. There had to be a line.  
  
Hutch didn't refuse; he didn't answer at all. He was asleep.  
  
*  
  
The next night they lasted a little longer.  
  
Hutch had ordered dinner, but it sat getting cold while they were getting hot. They got back up, ate the cold dinner, and were back in bed in half an hour, at each other as though they hadn't seen each other in months. It was the craziest thing. When he and Starsky had started, they'd been honeymoon-crazy for each other, but this was more like when he'd been withdrawing. It felt sick; it felt inescapable, immoral, needful—  
  
It felt good.  
  
"It isn't just Terranova," Sonny said. He'd waited until Hutch was almost completely asleep, right on that crimson brink, before he said the words. Hutch didn't say anything, and Sonny went on. "I want that creep he's reporting to, the one he's telling everything to, the one who knows—" He couldn't go on, couldn't say any more.  
  
Hutch could. "It's not enough to kill the betrayer; you have to kill the one he'd betrayed you to; you have to destroy him." Sonny stared at him. "What's his name?" Hutch asked.  
  
"McPike. Frank McPike. And yeah, I want you to destroy him. I want you to rip the words he's heard out of his head—by the time he's gone, I don't want him to be able to remember my name, let alone anything—anything more."  
  
Hutch was nodding. He turned over on his side, facing Sonny, and caught his gaze and said, "I can get to McPike. I'm the hero cop from Los Angeles, remember? I've got a gold shield. If I want him to, he'll see me." He smiled, and settled himself against Sonny, preparing to find his way back to that edge and fall.  
  
*  
  
Hutch spent the next three days by himself. Steelgrave said they needed to think about this, plan it carefully. "Just a little time, make sure we get the details right. We take a couple days, then we get together again, see what we've got."  
  
"What'll I say if someone asks me why I'm here?" The someone, of course, was Terranova.  
  
"Tell 'em to ask me—it'll drive Terranova nuts."  
  
"What've you told him?"  
  
"Nothing. He doesn't know what to think. Maybe I'm trying to buy you," Sonny said, and the words felt like honey. "Good thing I already know you're a cop, since it's pretty clear I don't have my brother's knack at spotting 'em," he added under his breath. "From your end—you're staying here because you're burning out, you're fucked up, half the time you're too drunk to walk to the door without running into a wall on your way. You can fake that, can't you?" Sonny's smile was neither gentle nor kind, it didn't soften the words, it hardened them.  
  
"I'm a fucked up, burned out cop, but I've got a gold shield and a dead partner," Hutch elaborated on Sonny's story. "I'm here to get drunk and forget, but hey, you think I might be for sale." On the last words, his voice dipped to the same tone Sonny had used when talking about buying him. Sonny's smile turned warm; no, it was his eyes that warmed.  
  
"I've got a question," Hutch said just as Sonny was about to leave. Sonny turned to look at him, waited. "What's the practical difference between you popping Terranova and me doing it?"  
  
"Besides if you do it, I can watch?" Sonny asked, grinning. "There is none. It's Gunther that's gonna get me out from under. I bring in his territory, I could tell the fucking Commission about Terranova's pillow talk, they'd still welcome me with open arms—at least to my face. I'll spin Terranova's being here as part of the trap, I'll up what I bring into the organization a few million percent, I leapfrog over Patrice, Mahoney, who knows how many other guys—get my own seat on the Commission." Sonny smiled blissfully, and closed the door behind him.  
  
*  
  
Hutch found himself following Vincenzo, needing to know all he could about this Judas, this betrayer. He watched him talking with McPike, imagining it Starsky, conspiring with Dobey to set him up, have him killed. Starsky would never do that. Dobey would never do it, either. But these two would, and had. Steelgrave had stood at the window, staring out, talking in a low, detached voice, about how Vincenzo had set him up, wormed his way in, played him to get where he was. Hutch could feel his pain from across the room. These two weren't just trying to bring Sonny down, they'd set him up for torture and murder by his own people. He was too big for the DA to be willing to offer to plead him out, put him in Witness Protection, so he'd be left to the inevitable—Hutch knew, every cop knew, what the mob did to anyone who brought in a fed. And Sonny had treated Terranova like a brother. It wasn't something cops did, not good cops, not clean cops. And if having a fed in his house wasn't enough, they had the trump card of having him in his bed. Sonny'd been dead since the moment Vincenzo batted those big blue eyes at him.  
  
After McPike, Vincenzo went to Brooklyn, to visit his girlfriend. Hutch wondered what she'd do if she knew what he'd been doing the night before, begging Sonny Steelgrave to shove his dick up him. Slam the door in his face, or cum her brains out? Hell, maybe she did know, maybe that was Vincenzo's foreplay, telling her what he'd done the night before in the boss's bed.  
  
You're cracking up, Starsky's voice warned him, only it didn't really feel like a warning. It felt more like—like—like amusement. You're cracking up, Blondie. You know that, right? You wouldn't've really killed a fed when I was with you, would you?  
  
I dunno, Starsk. What about Agent Bettin? You remember him, the guy who didn't mind girls getting raped and tortured, as long as he got what he wanted?  
  
All right, maybe him. But Sonny Steelgrave's no innocent.  
  
Neither was Joe Durniak, but he was your father's friend.  
  
Starsky's voice subsided, and Hutch wished he hadn't won the argument.  
  
Anyway, it's not about Steelgrave's innocence, it's about their guilt! They're cops, even if they are feds, you don't—we don't do this, it's not right!  
  
You care about right?  
  
I care about you. You care about right.  
  
I care about you. His tone gentled. I care about you.  
  
Hutch didn't ask himself why he was identifying with a mobster; he already knew. Sonny had touched him, his pain, his hopeless love for his Vincenzo, and looking at Sonny's pain, at Sonny's situation, was better than feeling his own, it was a distraction, everything was a distraction from the vibrations in his head that tapped out one message over and over: who cares? What does it matter? Just give up.  
  
He waited for his conscience to tell him he couldn't do this, but he'd buried his conscience—first there'd been a ceremony in Los Angeles, then the official funeral in New York. His conscience was officially dead. He thought about Gunther, dead—annihilated, and the peace he hoped it would give him. He wanted to die—he couldn't think of one good reason to go on living, except to see Gunther in the ground before he packed it in. He didn't think about Starsky; he didn't have to. Starsky was a constant hum in his head, he was the crash of the waves, he was the beat of Hutch's heart—just as he'd been in the pulse at Steelgrave's throat as he fucked Hutch late into the night. There was the beloved blood he saw every time he looked at his hands. There was no "thinking of Starsky" or "not thinking of Starsky." There was only the world, dripping with blood, with Starsky everywhere in it—and nowhere Hutch could touch.  
  
Steelgrave said he'd call twice a day, and Hutch kept himself sober for those calls. Since he knew if he started drinking he wouldn't stop, that meant he couldn't start.  
  
By the third day, Hutch's hands were shaking when he went to shave. He needed distraction, he craved it. When Steelgrave called the first time, he found himself saying, "When am I going to see you again?" and he could hear the desperation in his voice.  
  
Steelgrave did too, and it made him laugh. "Got it bad, huh?"  
  
"You ever had anybody take a header off one of these balconies?" Hutch asked, which only made Sonny laugh harder.  
  
"Skip your beach-combing tonight, turn in early."  
  
But Steelgrave didn't arrive early. It was after midnight when he finally got there, and when he did, he looked—not rumpled, but his creases were off, like a bed hastily remade, an aureole around him the color of blood sluicing down the drain, and he smelled of sex. Hutch didn't know if he'd been with Terranova, or some girl, and he didn't care.  
  
Well, yeah, he did. Very much. And the self-satisfied smirk on Sonny's face didn't make him feel any better. He came into the room like a cat on the prowl.  
  
"So, what's up?" He was lounging in the bedroom doorway.  
  
"I thought we needed to talk. Make plans."  
  
"Getting tired of living the good life?"  
  
"If that's what you want to call it." Hutch could feel his temper rising, even though he knew that was what Steelgrave was going for.  
  
Steelgrave just stood there, looking at him for what felt like a very long time, then he moved from the doorway to the dark red sofa and sat down. "Okay. Come on over, sit down, let's talk."  
  
Hutch did, sitting on the other end of the crimson sofa, feeling like a virgin trying to avoid the clutches of a wolf. It made him feel ridiculous.  
  
"I want to know when we're going to do this," Hutch said. "I want—look, if all you're going to do is string me along, I've got another way out—"  
  
Sonny leaned closer to him, not touching him, but the closeness was like a calming caress. "I've been setting things up. When this starts, it's got to go fast, because when they realize Terranova's missing, the feds are gonna grab me. Now, you don't want to have to wait until they've finished their investigation to go after Gunther, do you?"  
  
Hutch shook his head.  
  
"I didn't think so. So this's what I've come up with. Terranova checks in once a day, when nothing's going on, and he's gotta make that check-in by six p.m. So once he calls, he's set 'til the next day, at six. That gives us twenty-four hours right there. I told him I've got a trip to LA in the works, but the details aren't set yet. But this is how it's going to work: he makes his last call to his 'bookie,' then meets me. He'll know I'll have him busy all night. He won't be expected to call in again until he's in LA, and the trip itself should buy some time.  
  
"We'll be together on the plane six hours at least, and that doesn't include all the shit at the airports, travel to and from—they're going to have to cut him a lotta slack on this. And no matter how worried his Lifeguard is, he won't be able to get a hold of McPike. We've caught a piece of luck there—McPike's been kicked out of the marital bed, he's living in some crummy hotel. You won't have to worry about the wife and son. I figure the search is gonna start there, with McPike, so you make sure you get rid of the body good. They won't know whether there's a connection between Vinnie's disappearance and McPike's—hell, they might think they've run off together, who knows? But they're going to be looking here for McPike and in LA for Vinnie, at least to start, and they won't know where to look there. They'll be looking for me, too, I'm sure, but they won't know where. They'll have to coordinate with the LA feds—and the locals. You think that'll be easy?"  
  
Hutch shook his head. "How do you know so much about how all this works?" he asked.  
  
Sonny shrugged. "Know your enemy," he answered shortly. "You know how my operations work." Hutch nodded; it was true. "They might want to pull me in for questioning, but they aren't going to know where I am. I'll make a hotel reservation, but we won't be staying there, we'll be staying in a house a friend of mine's got at the beach. He's not there, he'll never know the difference. It'll take 'em time, but none of it will be anything I can't explain later. The big thing is, the deal with Gunther's got to be arranged before we do anything here." Sonny shook his head. "And I'll be damned if I can figure out how to do it."  
  
*  
  
They were lingering over a late Sunday breakfast. It was that kind of day—dreary, threatening rain but never quite delivering on that threat. They sat by the window, eating by what meager light it had to let in.  
  
"You know you can't go back." The time was getting close and Sonny was getting edgy.  
  
Hutch's mouth was a thin line. He shook his head marginally. "I've killed people before."  
  
Sonny turned to stare out the window, towards the skyline. "You've killed them, but how many have you murdered? How many feds, murdered in cold blood?"  
  
"Nothing cold about my blood," Hutch muttered. "And what're you griping about anyway? You want Gunther dead too."  
  
Sonny turned away from the view, back towards the cop—ex-cop—whatever. "Yeah, but my outlook is a bit more financial and politically long-range, I think."  
  
Hutch shifted a little and shrugged. "I think my outlook is a little more long-range than yours, but maybe not so political." He sounded as though he was talking to himself again, and Sonny thought, for not the first time, This guy is really screwed up. "Dead's about as long-range as it gets, huh?"  
  
"Yeah. I'll give you that one. Question is, how're we going to get to him? I don't think he's going to be inviting either of us to his club for brandy and cigars. He knows we both want him, he's not gonna come down out of that ivory tower so we can use him for target practice."  
  
"Yeah, but he wants me, too. He wants me bad. He's not going to just stay holed up in his tower. Maybe if he knows where I am, he'll come after me. I'm surprised he didn't try for me at Starsky's memorial service in LA." Then, sarcastically, "Maybe the three thousand, two hundred and one other police officers discouraged him."  
  
Sonny gave an abrupt laugh. "Maybe," he agreed. "Maybe. But there are time factors involved here. We're going to have to come up with some kind of plan." He paused to finish his coffee, then, changing the subject, "You and your partner knew Joey Durniak." A statement, nothing else. He had done his research very carefully this time. Nobody was ever going to surprise him again, ever.  
  
"Yes. Durniak paid to bury Starsky's father."  
  
"Who paid to bury your partner?" Never ask a question you don't know the answer to.  
  
"I paid for it," Hutch replied, his voice harsh and angry, his eyes dangerous. "I'm still paying for it. I'll pay for it the rest of my life." He got up from his chair and walked over to the dark red sofa; pulled a thick red envelope out of his inside jacket pocket, and tossed it onto the table in front of Sonny. It hit with a heavy thud. "First installment," he said shortly.  
  
Sonny opened the envelope carefully. There was cash inside. He flipped through it casually. At least $500,000. In $1,000 bills, no less. The amount didn't surprise him at all; his investigation hadn't stopped with Hutch's life as a cop. The cash itself was a surprise.  
  
"What's this for?"  
  
Hutch shrugged, turned and walked over to sit on the crimson sofa. "Call it a sign of good faith. Or a small token of my affections, if you like." He smiled at Sonny over the back of the sofa.  
  
_"Conoscete che cosa dico che? 'Gunther è buono quanto sepolto anche'?"_ he asked, grinning now.  
  
Hutch smiled slowly and inclined his head in acknowledgment gracefully. "I know what it means, sì." His face looked like an angel's. "'Gunther's as good as buried, too.' Sono corretto?"  
  
Sonny's grin grew wider.  
  
"Wanna fuck, Boss?" Hutch asked, his voice a deep shiver.  
  
Sonny laughed. "What's this, the next installment, already?"  
  
"I haven't even begun to pay you."  
  
Afterward, when they'd caught their breath, Sonny asked him, "What's it like?" and then "Do you dream about him?"  
  
Hutch shrugged. "Awake, asleep, it doesn't make any difference, he's just always there. Always there. I don't think I dream anymore. Nothing I do makes any difference. I kept trying to get drunk enough that I wouldn't feel anything, but that didn't work, it makes everything—slurry, but he's still there."  
  
"You want him gone?" Sonny asked. His eyes were glittery with an obsessive longing.  
  
"I want some peace," Hutch said, trying not to let the bitterness into his voice. "I don't see him happy and alive, I see him breathing out his own blood, his body all torn up on the cement, I see—all I can hear is myself, screaming— I just want some peace."  
  
"So do I," Sonny agreed, and there was frightening bitterness in his voice. "The difference is, your Starsky didn't betray you—"  
  
"Oh, yes, he did," Hutch interrupted. "He betrayed me—he left me! I begged him not to, but he wouldn't stay, he wouldn't—" I am not going to break down! I am not going to cry in front of this man! "He betrayed me worse than Terranova did you," he added softly. "You want him gone? I can't promise you that. Dead, yeah, dead's easy. But you'll have to get him out of your dreams on your own. There's nothing I can do for your dreams."  
  
Sonny's feral smile slid through him like the needle had, as his hand slid through his hair. "Oh, I think there's something you can do for my dreams, too."  
  
Hutch smiled back. He couldn't deny how much he enjoyed this distraction, but he knew that was all it was—distraction. He could tell Sonny that, but what would be the point? One thing he'd learned quickly was, the man believed what he wanted to believe.  
  
*  
  
In the end, the way to get to Gunther was so easy it would have been laughable, if Sonny had been in a mood to be amused. After a long dinner and two bottles of very good wine, Hutch said, "Why don't you just get in touch with Gunther, tell him about the proposal I made you, and tell him you're selling me to him?"  
  
Sonny shook his head. "No, it's too straightforward, he'd think it was a trap. You want some dessert?"  
  
"Shouldn't we get this worked out first?" Hutch asked, and Sonny laughed, went to get the profiteroles out of the refrigerator.  
  
"The base idea's not bad, but it needs some blood." He put the plate of profiteroles on the table, put a couple on Hutch's plate, and sat back down.  
  
"I thought I was the one who wanted Gunther's blood." Hutch picked up his fork, touched the top of one of profiteroles.  
  
Sonny took the fork out of his hand. "You eat it with your fingers."  
  
Hutch picked one up, looked at it, put it back down.  
  
"Not hungry?" Sonny asked, then realizing this was something about his Starsky, said, "How about a double cross? I contact Gunther, say that Mahoney brought you here, stashed you in a penthouse, didn't tell me why, but you had a few too many in the bar and I got you talking. I offer to sell him out if he takes Mahoney out for me, and I get Mahoney's action and some of Gunther's East Coast action."  
  
Hutch picked up his fork again, cut one of the profiteroles in half, sat looking at it. "'Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.' It's a sneaky plan," he said at last, put down the fork and picked up one half of the little dessert. Looking at it seemed to be causing him pain. Sonny took it from his fingers, stuck it in Hutch's mouth.  
  
"That's why it'll work." Sonny picked up the other half of the profiterole, put it in his mouth, chewed it, swallowed. "I'll make the call in the morning."  
  
*  
  
The message Sonny left was simple: "Hutchinson." And his phone number. His phone rang ten minutes later, and it was James Marshall Gunther himself on the phone.  
  
Talking to Gunther was like talking to an alien—a reptile with human intelligence, but without the human feeling. His voice sounded like dry ice, burning with its cold. But Sonny knew how to play it cool, too; he'd dealt with Patrice, after all. When Gunther expressed his doubts about Sonny's information, Sonny laughed, told him to watch his back, and hung up.  
  
The phone rang again twenty minutes later. Sonny let it ring five times before he answered. Without preamble, Gunther asked why Sonny was telling him this, and Sonny laid out the deal for him. When Gunther laughed his frostbite laugh, Sonny hung up again.  
  
This time the phone rang again almost immediately. Sonny let it ring until it stopped ringing, but he answered it when it rang again, and Gunther sounded angry. He told Sonny to stop hanging up on him. Sonny told him to quit wasting his time. The foreplay over, they got down to business. Gunther didn't agree to all of Sonny's terms—Sonny had to come down quite a bit—but eventually they came to an accord. Gunther did agree to the most important term, the one non-negotiable one: that he come himself, alone. When he'd balked at that, Sonny had told him he'd take care of the wet work—for a fee—but he wasn't going to do it, or be part of it, with witnesses.  
  
Sonny had ended the conversation by telling Gunther he should be hearing from Mahoney soon—it had taken a while to get Hutchinson dried out, but now that he was, he'd be ready to deal. When that happened, Gunther was to call Sonny back and they could make their plans.  
  
Hutch had been half-lying in a chair, long legs stretched out in front of him, listening to the whole thing. As Sonny hung up the phone, he turned to smile at him. "I think we forgot something," Hutch said. His eyes looked frighteningly distant. Sonny wanted to slap him, to get him back from wherever he was.  
  
Instead he snapped, "What?"  
  
"Mahoney. Mahoney's not going to call, he doesn't know anything about this, right?"  
  
"Of course he doesn't know anything about this!" Sonny was irritated. If he hadn't known better, he'd have thought Hutch had scored, but unless he'd done it in the bathroom, that wasn't possible; they'd been together all night. Whatever was wrong with him came from inside himself.  
  
"Then how's he going to call Gunther?"  
  
"He's not. I am."  
  
Hutch shook his head, not following, so Sonny pulled a chair up across from him and sat down. "Sit up straight." And when Hutch had, "I'm going to tell him Mahoney doesn't want to handle it personally, that he laid out the deal to me and put me in charge of it. I'm gonna laugh my ass off at that—"  
  
"You think he'll believe you?" Hutch interrupted. He seemed to be looking at something over Sonny's shoulder, and Sonny had to suppress the urge to turn around and look.  
  
"He'll believe me," he told Hutch firmly. "He wants you so bad, I could tell him just about anything now and he'd buy it. So, I tell him I'll be calling him back in a little while, with Mahoney in the room listening, and we make the deal. Whatever arrangements we come up with are going to have to stick, because I'm going to tell him you know the details and I can't make changes because you don't trust me—" That got a smile from Hutch, though Sonny wasn't sure just what he was smiling about. He leaned closer to Hutch. "So, where do you want me to do it?"  
  
Hutch smiled again. "In the conservatory, with the candlestick?" he asked.  
  
Sonny was sure he couldn't be drunk, either, but he was acting so strange— Was remorse kicking in? He didn't have time for remorse. Sonny got up, standing over Hutchinson, staring down at him. "Look, you can't back out now—"  
  
Hutch rose suddenly, grabbed Sonny's shoulders, and kissed him. "Where do I want to do it? In the bedroom, any position you want, and we can talk out the details there!" He released Sonny, turned, and walked to the bedroom, stripping off his clothes as he went.  
  
Sonny followed him. Maybe a good fuck would snap him out of this.  
  
*  
  
"We clear on everything?" Sonny asked. He was tying his tie, getting ready to go to the office. People had been commenting on how much time he was spending away, and that was not a good thing. "We're doing Terranova tomorrow night. I'm meeting him at the motel at six. You know how to get there?"  
  
"Yeah. I've got the directions right here." Hutch touched his pocket.  
  
"Good." For some reason, Sonny couldn't seem to get the tie to do what he wanted it to. Hutch came over to stand behind him, put his arms around his neck, and untied the tie. "There's sliding glass doors on the ground floor. They're supposed to be sealed shut, but they're easy enough to open from the inside. I told him to get the room at the end, away from the office. You'll know when to come in."  
  
"How'd you get him to go along with this?" Hutch asked, though he already knew the answer. The tie was untied; now he began slowly retying it correctly.  
  
Sonny's smile in the mirror was serene. "He does what I tell him to, remember?"  
  
Hutch laughed. "Yeah. But why a motel?"  
  
"What'd I tell him? That I thought it would be fun. What's the real reason? I don't want his blood all over my place. And he deserves to die in a trashy motel."  
  
Hutch nodded.  
  
"Sure you can do this?" Sonny asked. They were still looking at each other in the mirror.  
  
"No problem, Boss. No problem at all."  
  
*  
  
"I did like you said, Sonny," Vinnie told him as he let him in the motel room. "This is the trashiest place I could find. Hell," he added with amused pride, "this is the trashiest place I've ever seen. I never knew you were into slumming, but I figured if we were gonna do it, we ought'a do it right."  
  
Sonny shrugged. "Never have been, but I wanted to go someplace nobody knew us." He looked around the room, taking in the ugly, puke-colored paint peeling off the walls, the bedspread a dissonant pattern of faded-to-unidentifiable shades, the garage sale-reject lamps, resisting the inappropriate urge to laugh. "This place's horrible. You did good. You bring the food?"  
  
"Even brought a bottle of champagne," Vinnie said. His smile was—happy—heartbreaking. "'Course, if I'd seen this place first, I'd've brought Ripple."  
  
Sonny laughed, really amused, and it made his chest hurt.  
  
Vinnie snagged the two Styrofoam cups from the bathroom and they sat down on the bed to eat the Chinese food he'd brought. "What's the big occasion?"  
  
Sonny started opening cartons, checking the contents. "Idiot. The Rainbow Room's for an occasion. This's just—I missed you." Sonny smiled at him. The sad thing was, it was true.  
  
Vinnie looked up from the fortune cookie he'd been about to open, and what Sonny saw in his face was the one thing he wanted most and least. "Yeah," Vinnie agreed. "Wha'd I do to piss you off, anyhow?"  
  
"Nothin'," Sonny said, starting to gather up the cartons and put them on the floor. "Just stuff going on." He took the cookie out of Vinnie's hand and dropped it on the bedside table. "Food'll heat up fine," he said, and leaned forward to kiss Vinnie on the mouth.  
  
They were stripped and under the covers in a matter of minutes. Vinnie's big body felt good, felt comfortable, but he had none of Hutch's—irrationality. Sonny had no idea when that had become a turn-on, but now he found he missed it, and that thinking of Hutch lurking around outside was what really had him jazzed up.  
  
He was lying on his back, knees cocked, Vinnie's head between his thighs doing delicious things to him. Part of him was wishing he had never started this, that he and Vinnie could just roll around on the sheets, eat their cold Chinese food, and go back to the hotel—and not just the part that Vinnie had in his mouth. But that was no longer possible, and the reason wasn't the crazy blond man waiting in the shadows, it was what Vinnie had done to him, what Vinnie was. He wasn't just a cop, he was Sonny's own private Judas, and when he had everything he wanted, he was going to hand Sonny over to the Romans for execution. Only one of them could come out of this alive.  
  
Sonny opened his eyes. He didn't think he'd heard anything, but he saw Hutch standing behind Vinnie, looking like a golden shadow. His eyes met Hutch's and he reached out to put his hand on Vinnie's head, tangling his fingers in the lush, dark hair. "Stop," he gasped, staring into Hutch's eyes, pulling at Vinnie's hair. "Stop—"  
  
Vinnie released him lifted his head to stare at him blankly. "Wha—wassa matter? I thought you were almost ready to—" His voice was thick with its own passion.  
  
Hutch's hand replaced Sonny's in Vinnie's hair, jerked his head back. With the other hand he slashed the straight-razor across the taut skin, severing one of Vinnie's carotids. The warm blood gushed out, splashing Sonny the way his cum had. Hutch pushed the body out of the way and climbed between Sonny's legs. He grabbed Sonny's hips in his big, strong hands, and took his dick deep into his throat. It was all Sonny needed; in a few minutes he was coming, hard and desperate, screaming Vinnie's name.  
  
*  
  
Sonny lay spent, eyes half closed, listening to Hutch clean up in the bathroom. He stood for a moment in the doorway, backlit by the bathroom light; the light seemed to seek him out, collect in his hair, on his skin. Like an angel on a Christmas tree, Sonny thought, and smiled to himself. The light went out with a soft click. The moon had gone behind threatening clouds and made the night dark as pitch. Hutch walked across the room, gone from a source light to a shadow moving among other shadows. He knew where Hutch was going, but he didn't know how long he'd be gone.  
  
"It could take a long time," Hutch said. He'd picked up the bag with his clean clothes in it. "It could take a very long time. How long do you want it to take?"  
  
If the question was designed to incite, it worked beautifully. Sonny was off the bed in an instant, had Hutch on the floor, away from Vinnie's body, away from the blood. He'd only got his shirt on, not even buttoned. Sonny was between his legs, shoving in, no thought of lube, no thought of anything but getting inside him. Hutch was laughing—he'd been expecting this, and had prepared for it.  
  
They'd talked practically the whole time they fucked. Not dirty talk; certainly not sweet nothings in the darkness. Talk of McPike's murder—ideas impossible, elaborate, extreme, unspeakable. No, not unspeakable; they'd said the words. "You want the words Terranova said wiped from McPike's brain forever?" Hutch had asked, and when Sonny grinned his assent, he'd continued, "You want me to bring you back his head, so you can check?"  
  
That had flared Sonny's lust white hot—both the carelessness of the question and the knowledge that he'd do it, if Sonny said yes. It had made them both come like crazy.  
  
"Don't do anything stupid and get caught," Sonny said as Hutch got up, smoothing the worry into an insult.  
  
"Try not to," Hutch agreed, then added gratuitously, "I can smell you all over me." He laughed as he pulled his shirt closed and started buttoning it, a nasty laugh at a private joke.  
  
"What?" Sonny demanded.  
  
"I just thought—" he glanced at Vinnie's body. "Nothing."  
  
Sonny got up, walked over to him. "What?"  
  
Hutch grinned, laughed again as though he couldn't help himself. "I was just thinking—I wonder if McPike will recognize the smell."  
  
Sonny had nearly grabbed him again then; would have, if time had not been an element. Maybe they shouldn't have stopped to consummate this next level of their bargain, but Sonny had the idea that burying bodies was easier if you didn't have a second shovel handle in your pants.  
  
*  
  
"Be back later," Hutch had said, and after he'd gone, Sonny had cleaned up and proceeded to wait. Hutch had refused to tell him what he was going to do; he insisted that the surprise was part of the present, but Sonny hated waiting more than just about anything else. And he was still so goddamned hard. He had tried to talk Hutch into calling him from McPike's, letting him listen, but Hutch had sensibly refused. "You know the cops'll be checking the phone records. They'll trace a call to here, then they'll come and find Terranova's blood all over the place, then—"  
  
"Yeah, yeah, you're right," Sonny broke in to concede.  
  
"Unless you want to spend your time trying to sanitize this place, wipe away any trace—"  
  
"All right, I said you were right! Now get going!"  
  
Hutch laughed and left, closing the door behind him."  
  
*  
  
What was Hutchinson doing? Sonny couldn't stop thinking about it. Had he done it clean and simple, was he burying the bodies already or was McPike still alive, wishing he was dead, begging for death—  
  
Dammit, he was so fucking hard— Sonny unzipped his slacks, resisted the urge to put his hand down them. When Hutchinson got back, he was going to make him tell him every last detail while Sonny fucked his brains out.  
  
*  
  
Where the hell was Hutchinson? It was starting to get light out, he wasn't back, he hadn't called. Had he taken care of McPike, was he burying the bodies, was he on his way back, or—  
  
Sonny's hard-on felt as though it had become a permanent condition, and his balls ached from it.  
  
It couldn't be a set-up—Hutchinson had slit Vinnie's throat, there was no way he could have gone to the cops, it just wasn't possible. And Vinnie was most definitely dead—his blood was all over the room, and even if it were washed from Sonny's skin, the smell of it wouldn't go away.  
  
Sonny paced, and stared out the window, and looked at his watch. Where was he? Had he just taken off, disappeared as abruptly as he'd appeared in Sonny's life? But he'd only paid his part of the bargain, he hadn't gotten what he'd come there for. What reason could he possibly have for cutting out without getting the very thing he'd sold his soul for?  
  
For God's sake, they had a fucking plane to catch!  
  
"Hey, Boss." Sonny turned from the window to see Hutch standing, leaning against the door. He had come into the apartment silently, as silently as he had come into the hotel room. He was wearing a long, dark trench coat, something that he must have picked up at the Salvation Army. It hung open, and Sonny could see the blood spatters on his jeans, on his sweatshirt. His sneakers, Sonny noticed, while hardly clean, showed no blood at all. "Where the fuck have you been?" Sonny growled.  
  
"Taking care of things. Been waiting long?" His teasing tone annoyed the hell out of Sonny.  
  
"Do you know what time it is? We've got a flight out at—"  
  
"I know what time our flight is," Hutch cut in. He pulled off his coat, dropped it on the floor, pulled off his sweatshirt and let it fall on top of the coat. After than he kicked his shoes off, and his pants joined the pile of clothes. He wasn't wearing any socks or underwear. He was as hard as Sonny, and for the same reason. Death as an aphrodisiac.  
  
Sonny stared at him, at the odd brownish splotches all over Hutch's body. It looked as if the White Knight was rusting. "What the hell?"  
  
Hutch walked toward him, turning on all the lights as he came. "You're not ready," he said, grabbing Sonny, hand going to his crotch. He found the open zipper. "Well, maybe you are," he admitted. "But you've gotta get out of the rest of this shit." This second time he undressed Sonny with far greater efficiency, and far less care, ripping fabric, tearing off buttons, getting to skin as fast as he could. When they were both naked, Hutch's hand wrapped around Sonny's dick. "You have been waiting for me, haven't you?"  
  
"What happened? Where the hell have you been?"  
  
Hutch gave his cock a squeeze. "Did you know there's a theory that Lizzie Borden killed her parents in the nude and that's why there was never any blood-stained clothes to be found?"  
  
"What?" Sonny demanded in angry bafflement.  
  
"Starsky told me that; he was a big Borden murder buff, read all the books, loved that TV movie—"  
  
"What the fuck are you—" And then he got it—the rust-colored blotches were dried blood, and that explained why there were more of them on Hutch's skin than there had been on his clothes—they had soaked through the other way. "Oh—"  
  
"You want me to tell you about it?"  
  
Sonny nearly screamed, with the exquisite pleasure, with frustration. "Talk to me, you bastard—where the hell have you been?"  
  
"Why don't we get more comfortable?" Hutch suggested. "I'd like to get a lot more comfortable."  
  
Sonny didn't have time to answer; he was being forced down on his back, his legs pulled apart.  
  
"Comfortable?" Hutch asked.  
  
"What the fuck are you doing?" Sonny asked, for the first time feeling—not afraid, but unsettled. He knew Hutch was nuts, but until now he hadn't been—  
  
Not afraid. He wasn't afraid. He was just a little unsettled.  
  
"You got the verb right." Hutch was grinning at him. "Question is, is that what I'm going to be doing? Did you ever let Vincenzo inside you, or would I be the first?"  
  
First? Sonny's brain stuttered a little at the thought, but he was so horny, he wasn't sure he cared what they did, as long as they did something. "Yeah," he agreed. "You'll be the first."  
  
Hutch's smile grew wider. "Good. Good. But I'm not quite ready yet." His hand went back to Sonny's dick, squeezing, pulling. "I'd like to suck you, but it's so hard to talk with your mouth full. But you don't have much to say. I know, why don't you suck me, while I tell you all about it? Doesn't that sound like a good idea?"  
  
Sonny couldn't seem to form words, but then, Hutch didn't seem to care. He squeezed Sonny once, hard, then let go and scooted around so he was lying with his crotch very close to Sonny's face.  
  
Sonny hadn't done this before, but when Hutch started talking it somehow got easier. "Let me tell you a story," he murmured as Sonny took his cock into his mouth. He kept talking with remarkable articulateness, considering everything. And the things he said. The things he said . . . . The super-sized dick in his mouth was the least of his, uh, concerns. Still, he didn't neglect it, and what he lacked in proficiency, he hoped he made up for in enthusiasm. Hutch wasn't complaining, anyway. Hutch was talking to him, his tone sensual and dreamy, telling him how he got McPike to open his door by claiming to have tracked him down after seeing him at Starsky's funeral, how he pretended to be drunk and how McPike, with a mixture of exasperation and pity, grudgingly let him in. "That was his first mistake," Hutch said, and he laughed.  
  
It wasn't the last time he laughed while he told his story, while he talked about tying up McPike, about what he did with the straight razor, and how he had talked to McPike about his Vinnie the whole, long time. "Doesn't know he's dead—didn't know he's dead, whatever, he thinks I left him tied up someplace, bleeding—thought, he thought—oh, God, who can think of verb tenses when you're doing that?" Hutch demanded, and thrust in, hard, close, ready. Nothing Hutch said after that was particularly eloquent or memorable, and after that he had Sonny's dick in his mouth and Sonny didn't care that he couldn't talk, and they both went crazy.  
  
*  
  
Hutch ate the forgotten Chinese food before they went to the airport, and Sonny sat watching him, as he'd sat watching him methodically clean up the blood, as he'd watched him shower, and shave. He hadn't joined him in the shower; Sonny liked his privacy in the bathroom, even if it was just brushing his teeth, but he couldn't take his eyes off this lunatic he seemed to own.  
  
And Hutch liked being watched. Every move he made was just for Sonny's—approval? Entertainment? Arousal? Whichever, he was succeeding on all fronts.  
  
Sonny had heard stories like what he'd experienced last night—well, without the sex. He'd grown up with them, horror stories that somehow weren't, that were told with pride, and amusement, and a certain jealous awe, about how a guy in power would keep a loyal, eager psychotic around, to keep predators at bay, and to teach a lesson to anyone stupid enough to make a move against him. He'd thought he understood everything about that, but it was only the logistics of it he understood. What he hadn't known was how it made you feel, to have someone who would do the unspeakable for you, do it smiling. It made you feel like a god.  
  
It was a pity he couldn't keep this blond menace around permanently.  
  
*  
  
Hutch slept the whole flight back home—home? What home? His every bone ached with weariness, and his eyes closed the second he took his seat. The last thing he knew was Steelgrave buckling his seat belt for him.  
  
Getting off the plane, he automatically looked for Starsky. His partner had always met him at the gate, always parked where he wasn't allowed to, always got a ticket for it—and once the Torino got towed, when Hutch's flight was late. When Hutch had suggested he try using airport parking, Starsky had refused. "Have you seen what they charge for parking? It's extortion! Anyway, if I've gotta pay somebody, I'd rather pay us."  
  
"Pay us?" Hutch had asked, not getting it.  
  
"Sure. If I pay to park in the airport parking, I'm paying the airport. If I pay a parking ticket, I'm paying the city, who pays us. I'd rather pay us. Anyway, one day I'm gonna get away with it. I can't quit 'til I do."  
  
Starsky was there waiting for him, the familiar airport, the familiar streets, the familiar—  
  
It was a waste of time to keep thinking that; he was everywhere. He was nowhere. It was all familiar, but it was all wrong, Starsky was no longer a part of it—no longer a living part of it. His fingerprints were all over it, of course. Hutch could see them everywhere, blood red.  
  
Sonny had been to Los Angeles before, but not his Los Angeles. "You live here on purpose?" he asked about Hutch's apartment, which for some reason made Hutch laugh.  
  
It was the perfect place to kill Gunther. Hutch could leave him there, with all the things he wouldn't need anymore, and the message would be clear for anyone who wanted to read it. He had to admit, that was one thing he liked about the Sicilians—leaving messages was something he could have learned to enjoy.  
  
He'd watched Sonny pace as they waited for Gunther, watched him move, thinking about him moving. Sonny wasn't nervous, he just wasn't very good at stillness. Starsky had been just as fluid, but more . . . playful in his movement. And he'd been good at stillness.  
  
"You're sure this is how you want it?" Sonny asked him, and Hutch said that it was. It was what Gunther deserved, to die the way Starsky had, with only Hutch watching him, not bleeding to death but breathing his own blood, drowning in it. "I got shot in January. One'a the bullets nicked a lung." Sonny said it off-handedly.  
  
Hutch had seen the scars, of course, knew what they were, but he hadn't asked. Now he looked at Sonny, into his drowning pool eyes. "What was it like?"  
  
"It was like last night, only without the sex," Sonny said, smiling at him, coming over to touch him. Then, "Vinnie saved my life."  
  
And Hutch touched back. "Saving you so he could do it himself—does that count?" he asked.  
  
They waited, talked, touched occasionally when they couldn't help themselves. They wouldn't do more in Hutch's apartment; this place was Starsky-tinged, Starsky-shot, Starsky-stained. Hutch watched as Sonny moved around the living room, effortlessly picking up and examining nearly every item Starsky had given him, touching nothing else. Hutch didn't want to know how he knew, if he even knew he knew.  
  
Gunther, of course, didn't come alone. He never went anywhere alone, and Hutch doubted he ever kept his word as a purposeful act; if what he did matched what he said he was going to do, it was mere coincidence.  
  
They were both sitting on the couch as Gunther and his two men entered the apartment. They had heard the footsteps and Steelgrave had the muzzle of the .38 pressed tightly against the side of Hutchinson's head. Both of them, understandably, looked grim.  
  
Gunther walked right over to him, slowly, but directly, his eyes on Hutch's the whole time: a man taking pleasure at walking safely up to a lion who couldn't harm him. "Hutchinson. How good to see you." He sounded as though he thought he was hosting a benefit.  
  
"Yeah, it's real great to see you, too," Hutch snarled back at him, hoping Sonny could keep a straight face.  
  
"And Mr. Steelgrave," Gunther said, turning his gaze on Sonny. "How good of you to bring me my—present. And you kept your word—you came alone. How—quaint."  
  
"I'm Sicilian," Sonny snapped back. "I always keep my word."  
  
"'Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line,'" Hutch said again, though it didn't sound like he was talking to anybody in the room.  
  
"I'm sorry," Gunther lied. "Of course you do. But you won't mind if my men search the—premises." He said the word with disgust that sounded as though he found the place a personal affront. Hutch wondered if seeing the motel room he and Sonny had slept in the night before would have been enough to kill him, and laughed. No one paid any attention.  
  
Sonny waved his free hand expansively. "Be my guest."  
  
"Be mine," Hutch murmured.  
  
When Gunther looked at him curiously, Sonny explained, "He's a little—happy right now. I wanted to assure his cooperation."  
  
Gunther nodded in satisfaction, then motioned to his bodyguards, who went off to check out the apartment. It didn't take long. When they came back, Gunther told them to frisk Sonny.  
  
"He's got a .38 in his hand," Hutch pointed out to the bodyguards. "You don't want to miss that."  
  
"He's going to hand it to me," Gunther said to Sonny, and Sonny shrugged.  
  
"That makes him your problem instead of mine," he said, and surrendered his gun. One of the bodyguards checked Sonny for more weapons, found none, and shook his head. "Are they mute?" Sonny asked. Hutch clamped his jaw tight; now the SOB was trying to make him laugh.  
  
Gunther ignored the frivolous question. "Go wait in the car," he told the two possibly mute men. "There's no need for any witnesses," he said, as though Sonny hadn't said the exact thing to him on the phone, as though he was the first person ever to think of that, and he locked the door behind them. "What did you give him?" he asked Sonny.  
  
"A little smack. He has a taste for it." Off Gunther's look of surprise, Sonny added, "You didn't know that?"  
  
"I had no idea." Gunther sounded both shocked and rather pleased.  
  
"Something you didn't know. Hard to believe." Hutch looked over at the greenhouse, at the plants that were dying. Sonny and Gunther were talking about something—money, maybe. Hutch glanced up and saw Gunther take an envelope from his breast pocket.  
  
"I have it right here," he said, looking at it. "But I'm not entirely sure why I should give it to you," and he put it back, returning his attention to Sonny. "There are only the three of us in the room, and I have the only gun." He motioned with it, and Hutch wondered if he'd ever shot anyone. He certainly held the gun as if he hadn't.  
  
Sonny was nodding, looking very serious. "That's not quite true. You have a gun, but unfortunately for you, it's not loaded. Now, Kenny, here, his gun has a full clip. Isn't that right, Kenny?" Hutch took the .357 from where it was cradled between his thigh and the arm of the sofa.  
  
Gunther's mouth was open, but no words were coming out. He pulled the trigger a couple of times, but no bullets came out.  
  
"There is one thing we agree on, and that's that witnesses are a bad idea," Sonny said. "That car of yours has a phone, doesn't it?"  
  
Gunther was staring at the gun in Hutch's hand. Sonny stood up, took the gun from Gunther's hand, and slapped him, hard. "I asked you a question. Does your car have a telephone?"  
  
"Yes, it—what you're doing is a mistake. Mr. Mahoney will not look kindly on—on you striking out you own like this."  
  
"That would be true if he knew anything about it," Sonny agreed. "But since he doesn't—" Sonny finished the sentence with a shrug. He walked over to Hutch's desk, took the bullets from the top drawer, and began replacing them in the gun. "So you're going to pick up the phone, call down to your car, and tell your bodyguards to come back up here. And if you don't, Kenny here is going to shoot you in the foot." The gun now fully loaded, he took out a silencer and screwed it on.  
  
Gunther was still staring at Hutch's gun. It was hard not to pull the trigger, but the time wasn't right yet. "And if I refuse?" Still with that air of superiority. It would be gone soon, Hutch told himself.  
  
"I hope you do; I've got fifty bucks says you'll have to have bullets in five body parts before you'll make that call. Kenny says it won't take more than three. But Kenny's got a whole box of ammo, and we can always change our bets, right?" Sonny looked at Hutch, smiling.  
  
"Sure, it was just a friendly wager."  
  
Gunther picked up the receiver, dialed a number. After a moment he said, "Tell them to come back up." He put the receiver back.  
  
Sonny waited at the door for the two bodyguards to return. They weren't expecting anything and Sonny shot them as they came into the apartment. He put an extra bullet in each of their heads, just to be on the safe side. "WASP bodyguards," Sonny said with disgust. "All show and no go. No offense," he added to Hutch, who just shook his head.  
  
Gunther watched without saying a word. It finally seemed to be dawning on him that he wasn't going to be able to get out of this. "Hutchinson," he said, and now Hutch's name caught in his throat. "You know how much money I have—"  
  
"How much money does he have?" Sonny asked. He came back to sit to next to Hutch.  
  
"A lot. He's richer than God."  
  
"I could make you rich," Gunther went on. "I could make both of you rich—"  
  
"I'm already rich," Hutch said, almost amused. "What about you, Salvatore? You hurting for dough?" The Salvatore was payback for Kenny.  
  
"I could always use some more," Sonny admitted. He reached over and removed the envelope from Gunther's pocket. "Oh, look, here's some now." He looked inside the envelope. "You're right, he is rich. Too bad some things aren't for sale." He threw the envelope on the floor and put his hand on Hutch's thigh, stroking it.  
  
And Hutch pulled the trigger. It hit Gunther in the left lung and he went down. "Tell me what he's feeling," Hutch asked Sonny.  
  
"He feels like someone's shoved a red hot spike into his chest. Hurts like hell. He's breathing as hard as he can, but he can't get enough air; it's like he's underwater, only the water's thick and hot. It's scary," Sonny admitted. They watched for a while—Hutch wasn't sure how long. Then he pulled the trigger again. Sonny left, saying something about Chinese food, telling Hutch not to shoot again until he came back, and Hutch didn't, he just watched. "If there was anybody here who loved you—if there was anybody who loved you—they'd be trying to stop the bleeding, pressing on the wounds. But nobody's going to do that for you, and not just because I'd kill anybody who tried. If anybody loved you, they'd be seeing the whole world turn red. The whole world; no matter where they went. Do you know what it's like to have the whole world bloodstained?" and suddenly he was crying, his sobs drowning out the wet sounds Gunther was making.  
  
The next thing Hutch knew, Sonny had his arm around him. "No more blood. I don't want any more blood. The whole world is red!"  
  
"You're out of your mind," said Sonny his voice soft.  
  
"Is he drowning?" Hutch asked suddenly. His voice sounded strange to his own ears. The world had gone from red to black-and-white, like that old joke, badly mangled.  
  
"On his own blood," Sonny agreed. He picked up one of the little cardboard cartons sitting on them the coffee table. Hutch hadn't noticed when Sonny had put them there. He plucked a shrimp from the box and put it to Hutch's lips. Hutch took it in his mouth, grabbed Sonny's wrist and licked his fingers. Sonny disentangled his hand, fed Hutch another shrimp, and another. Eventually the room became quiet: silent as death. Still, they watched.  
  
"I read Terranova's fortune cookie," Sonny said.  
  
"Was my name mentioned?" Hutch asked.  
  
Sonny laughed, but didn't answer.  
  
*  
  
Hutch didn't sleep on the way back east. He sat with his eyes closed while they took off, until Sonny said, "You don't have to pretend to be asleep; you don't have to talk if you don't want to."  
  
"I don't," Hutch said. "Not now."  
  
Sonny closed his eyes, put his seat back. Hutch stared out the window and talked to Starsky in his mind as the stewardess brought him another drink. Sonny had told her when they boarded to give him anything he wanted.  
  
He didn't plead or beg, babe. He just kind of gurgled, and eventually Sonny shot him some more and he died. While we were waiting for—while we were waiting, Sonny went out for food—he hit that same Chinese place you went to that time we both got so sick. I didn't think not to warn him— It was okay this time. The garlic shrimp was pretty good.  
  
I don't know how long it took; I was watching him, not the clock. But we sat there watching the whole time. Your blood sacrifice.  
  
You've gone over the edge, Blondie. Way past the edge.  
  
No kidding. I'm out over the edge, standing on solid nothing. As long as I don't look down, I'll be fine. He paused, watching clouds. I wanted to save him, I wanted—let me tell you what happened.  
  
Tell me everything, Starsky said, in his whisper-in-the-dark voice.  
  
I wanted to kill Terranova because—  
  
You can say it, Starsky encouraged.  
  
Because I could see you in his eyes, because I felt like he could see me. But it was too dark.  
  
What?  
  
It was too dark, it—I couldn't see the blood, I needed— Since you died, all I've been able to see is blood, your blood, everywhere! But when I cut a man's throat, all I saw was chocolate syrup. It didn't help.  
  
With McPike, it was better. I turned on every light in the room, and when the blood began, it— For the first time, the world looked like what I saw every second.  
  
And McPike's screams? Starsky asked gently.  
  
They drowned out the ones in my head. My own screams, he didn't add. Starsky hadn't screamed; Starsky had just died. Hutch rested his head against the window. I never wanted him to stop screaming.  
  
Babe— Starsky's voice was reproving.  
  
No! You left me here alone—you don't get a say!  
  
Do you think I wanted to?  
  
I held on for you when I didn't think I could—would you have stayed if I'd written my name in lipstick on the tomato?  
  
Yeah, but only to kick your ass for writing on my car. C'm'on, Blondie, you know I'd never leave you—I never will.  
  
When Gunther, when he was lying there bled out, I stepped in the blood. And when I looked back at my footprints—I couldn't see the red. There wasn't any red, it was chocolate sauce. In the clear light of day. The red was gone. Hutch fingered his tie. This tie Steelgrave bought me—I thought it was red— He stared down at the indigo silk.  
  
Over the edge, babe. Like Captain Jim.  
  
Hutch shook his head, but he could feel the tears coming. What should I do? he pleaded silently. What should I do?  
  
You know what to do; you've always known. You know where to get the stuff, and you know how to use it. You need to be with me—  
  
"Yes," Hutch said aloud, downed the drink the stewardess had brought him. "Yes. Yes."  
  
The plane was touching down, and Sonny was awake looking at him. "What's that thing you keep saying, about Sicilians and death?"  
  
"'Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line,'" Hutch quoted. He was feeling very peaceful. "It's from The Princess Bride."  
  
Sonny shook his head. "Never heard of it."  
  
"Starsky loved that book. I never read it, but he kept reading me parts of it. For a month afterward, he kept talking about taking up fencing." Hutch looked at Sonny, thinking of Starsky's playful grace that could be so deadly, of Sonny's deadly grace and how it sometimes played.  
  
*  
  
Hutch was lying on the sofa, staring at the ceiling. The sofa, he had discovered, was a very pale gray; the apartment was not, in fact, decorated in shades of red. The knock at the door startled him; nobody knew he was there. He walked to the door and waited, wondering if it was maybe a new suit, but what did he need with a new suit? He waited until he heard Sonny's voice telling him to open up.  
  
"Since when do you knock?" Hutch asked, flinging the door open.  
  
"Brought you a present," Sonny answered, sauntering in. He tossed Hutch a copy of the day's New Jersey Post and went to pour himself a drink. "Check this out."  
  
MISSING FED'S BODY FOUND, the headline read, and below that, DA Sererra: "Mutilation work of a madman."  
  
"Congratulations, you made the big time."  
  
"How'd it go?" Hutch asked.  
  
Sonny shrugged. He'd spent the day being grilled by cops, and he was tired and sore, and his joke hadn't gone over. "How're you going to do it?" he asked.  
  
Hutch came over to him, took him by the shoulders and walked him over to the window. He began rubbing his shoulders. Sonny could see Hutch's reflection in the glass, knew Hutch could see his.  
  
"Do what?" Hutch asked, and Sonny made a face at him.  
  
"Don't play dumb, and do not try to con me." His mood had gone from dreary to angry. "You're gonna go score someplace, some alley, then you're gonna—" Sonny couldn't go on. In the mirror he could see Hutch watching him, looking baffled.  
  
After a few minutes of watching Sonny watching the rain, Hutch moved away to the other side of the room. "Would you rather I did it in your nice, clean hotel?" he asked. If he'd been closer, Sonny would have knocked him down. "Don't sweat it," Hutch said softly. "I'll take care of it, you won't be involved—"  
  
"Shut up!" Sonny yelled at him, and in a moment he had slammed out of the apartment.  
  
*  
  
Sonny was back late that night with dinner so lavish it should have included a couple of hookers and a blindfolded violinist. They had started off eating in silence, neither of them quite knowing what to say. The blood had been washed away, and somehow everything felt too sanitary for human contact.  
  
"You can't do it like that," Sonny said abruptly just as Hutch had picked up his spoon to eat his sorbet. Hutch frowned, wondering if Sonny wanted him to eat this dessert with his fingers, too. Then he realized what Sonny was talking about.  
  
"It's not your problem," Hutch insisted. "Just gimme a day to sleep all this off and I'll be out of your hair."  
  
Sonny shook his head in disgust, but he changed the subject. "I'm gonna marry Theresa." A stranger, talking to another stranger in a waiting room.  
  
"Yeah, that's a good idea. Get married, have kids, be happy. Somebody ought to be happy; why shouldn't it be you?"  
  
"You could . . . ." Sonny's voice trailed off.  
  
Hutch glanced up and caught Sonny's eyes. "No, I can't. Really, I just can't. Even talking without him doesn't seem worth it anymore. I almost wish I'd let Gunther—"  
  
"Don't even say that," Sonny snapped at him.  
  
"Sonny, just let it go. It'll be better for both of us and you know it." He stopped again, fixed his gaze on his hands, which had not moved.  
  
They ate their sorbet, drank their coffee. "Let me take care of it for you," Sonny said quietly. Hutch tried to argue with him, but Sonny wouldn't listen. "C'm'on, let me do it for you. No dirty alleys and I know how to make it painless."  
  
"All right." And then he added, "Thank you."  
  
*  
  
In the morning Sonny sent Hutch for a walk on the beach, and by the time he got back everything was ready. His doctor friend was very accommodating. Sonny led him into his bedroom where there was an IV pole had been set up, a bag of clear fluid hanging from it. Everything else Sonny needed was laid out on the bedside table.  
  
"When does the busty nurse in the short uniform show up?" Hutch asked, and Sonny forced a smile.  
  
"Knew I forgot something."  
  
"Oh, well," Hutch waved it away. "Maybe next time. What do you want me to do?"  
  
"Lie down, get comfortable," Sonny said, and when Hutch had, he sat down next to him on the bed.  
  
Hutch motioned toward the bag of fluid. "What is it?"  
  
"Sodium Pentothal. It's sweet, and fast. You go to sleep and just don't wake up. You won't even know when it hits. You don't get drowsy or anything."  
  
"Sound like you've had some experience."  
  
"Some surgery, yeah. Long time ago." Sonny was holding a hypodermic in his hands, just staring at it. "First comes the topical, but before that I've got a question. I can put it in your arm or in your throat. Which do you want?"  
  
"What's the difference?" Hutch asked.  
  
"In the throat's a little riskier, more chance of a blood clot, but it's faster. In the arm . . . it's kind of like giving blood. Takes longer to work."  
  
Hutch looked at his arm, thought about Monk and those goons holding him down, forcing the needle in. "And the blood clot would . . . ?"  
  
Sonny smiled ruefully. "Yeah, you got a point. Turn your head and keep still." Hutch did as instructed and Sonny jabbed him with the needle, pushed the plunger.  
  
"Tell me about Theresa," Hutch said suddenly.  
  
"What about her?" Sonny was rubbing Hutch's throat where he'd given him the injection, helping the drug to do its thing.  
  
"Who is she? Why her?"  
  
"I've known her since she was a little girl. Her family's—her family's the right one. She'd make me a great wife. She could help me run an empire."  
  
"Do you love her?"  
  
Sonny didn't want to answer that question. "Can you feel my fingers?"  
  
"No, I don't think no . . . . Does she love you?"  
  
That question was better. "Oh, yeah." In spite of himself Sonny smiled.  
  
Hutch turned his head to look at Sonny. He was smiling, too. "Good."  
  
"Turn your head back," Sonny instructed, guiding him with one firm hand to his cheek. "Now shut up and lay still."  
  
Hutch obeyed, staring at the wall.  
  
Sonny ran his fingers down Hutch's throat a couple of times, experimentally. "Take a deep breath," he told Hutch, and when Hutch exhaled, Sonny slid the needle in. "Don't move," he said, taping securely in place.  
  
"What else?"  
  
"Else?" Sonny asked, distracted. He was trying to connect the IV bag to the catheter, but he was having trouble; his hands didn't want to cooperate. They wanted to shake, or touch the blond hair, or— "What do you mean, else?"  
  
"About Theresa. Why her?"  
  
"She—she's right for me." Finally'd got them connected. Only one thing left to do.  
  
"Is that it?" Hutch asked.  
  
"'It'? You think there's more?" Sonny was irrationally, out-of-control angry, but what could he do with that anger? His—friend was about to die. There was no place to put the anger, so he kept it to himself. "She's right for me," he said again. "She'll keep me from going over the edge." Very quietly he added, "I won't be alone." He reached over and flipped the hep lock open.  
  
Hutch's nod was compromised by the needle. "I'd ask for a last kiss," he said, awkwardly off-hand, "but that's supposed to wake you up, not put you out, and you would have gone to all this trouble for nothing."  
  
"Hilarious," Sonny said tightly. "You missed your calling, you should'a done stand-up."  
  
"Too late now. I don't think I can stand up."  
  
Sonny was feeling sick, claustrophobically alone. I'll call Theresa. As soon as this is done, I'll call—  
  
Hutch had taken Sonny's hand and was pressing it to his chest, speaking only with the beating of his heart. His eyes were closed. After a little bit the fingers holding Sonny's hand went lax, and in a moment the beating stopped, too.  
  
Sonny sat not moving his hand, looking at Hutch, trying to understand what he was feeling. It was, he thought, the only time he'd seen the man look happy. leave this on, but I'm afraid it would get . . . mussed."  
  
There was something in his tone that irritated Sonny. Hutchinson softened the teasing words with a smile and began undoing the tie. "You're underpaying your tailor," he murmured, leaning close to Sonny's ear as he unbuttoned his shirt.  
  
"How would you know?" Maybe it wasn't irritation; maybe it was just an itch . . . .  
  
"You saw the way my suit was cut," Hutchinson's voice had fallen to a whisper. "I've seen the way yours are. You couldn't get better on Jermyn Street." Both the jacket and shirt were open, but Hutchinson didn't move to take them off. Instead he dropped to his knees and began to untie Sonny's shoes. He slipped them off, and the socks, then took one of Sonny's hands in his. He found the cufflink at his wrist and unfastened it. "Starsky used to—" Hutchinson froze; literally, it was like watching a stopped film, he simply knelt there, one hand holding Sonny's wrist, the other cupping the cufflink.  
  
A stream of compassion lost out against a downpour of need; Sonny had to know what Starsky used to. "Used to what?" he asked—no, demanded. _Tell me what he used to._  
  
Hutchinson's eyes met his, wide with sadness and surprise.  
  
"Used to what?" Sonny repeated, using the compassion to color his voice and feed his need.  
  
Hutchinson's hand closed over the cufflink. "He." That was all he said; he seemed to be waiting for something. Then he took a deep breath. "He used to drop these in his pocket. Neither of us wore them very often, but when we did, at least one pair would end up in Starsky's pants pocket." Hutchinson's eyes left his as he carefully placed the cufflink on the table and took Sonny's other wrist in his strong fingers. "I don't want to talk about Starsky," he said in a very small voice as he unfastened the other cufflink. He was begging Sonny not to ask, because if Sonny asked—whatever Sonny asked. Sonny reached out to touch that miraculous hair.  
  
"You don't have to." The hair was as soft as it was light. Sonny's fingers were as enthralled as his eyes.  
  
Hutchinson nodded, recovering himself. After a moment he told Sonny to stand up.  
  
When he did, his belt was unbuckled, his pants were unzipped. He was still fully dressed, but everything was loose, ready, waiting. Hutchinson stood up again, with a grace Sonny couldn't imagine Vinnie ever coming close to, and a weird pang hit him; he admired this man's agility, but he had loved Vinnie's ungainliness. It made no sense.  
  
Hutchinson walked around behind Sonny, removed his jacket like a good valet, then—nothing. Sonny turned around abruptly to see what he was doing and caught Hutchinson's admiring gaze. The trajectory of that gaze had been south of his belt. Sonny felt himself blush, but Hutchinson's hands were on him, sliding off his shirt, and then he was on his knees again and Sonny's pants were drifting downward. He stepped out of them and Hutchinson pushed them out of the way. Sonny was down to his shorts, and Hutchinson was just kneeling there, as if in adoration. "Of course," and Sonny could barely hear him, "maybe he isn't in it for the money. Your tailor," Hutchinson elaborated. "Maybe he just enjoys his work."  
  
"You're beautiful." Sonny said the words without thinking, as though they were something he'd tripped over.  
  
Hutchinson smiled sardonically as he stood up, and Sonny wondered how many times he'd heard those words, how many others, how many times Starsky had said them to him. He didn't want to think about someone anyone else touching this golden beauty. Sonny felt paralyzed by his own arousal; he wanted this man so much a simple touch would detonate him.  
  
"Eye of the beholder," Hutch murmured, leaned forward and letting his lips graze Sonny's cheek. Sonny gasped.  
  
"I want to touch you; I want you to touch me." Hutchinson's words screamed with the need to make a human connection. "I want you to know where I stand. I want you to know who I am." He stopped, sighing. "I want you to fuck me," he said again. "You want to do it here, on the floor, or—"  
  
Sonny shoved him, hard, backwards toward the bedroom. "Get in there!" His voice was hoarse; his heart was trip-hammering. Hutchinson complied, chuckling a little under his breath.  
  
*  
  
Hutchinson was—  
  
Hutchinson was—was—  
  
Hutchinson was different. Different from Vinnie, different from anyone he'd ever imagined; different.  
  
Vinnie had played beta wolf, had rolled over for Sonny for his own reasons. He'd played at submission, had offered up his ass to make his case. Hutchinson—  
  
was doing the same thing, wasn't he? Not for a case, and he wasn't lying about it, but wasn't it the same thing?  
  
Except it wasn't. Hutchinson wanted this bad, wanted Sonny the way he wanted oxygen. Their first kiss had Hutchinson's legs spread, had his hands at Sonny's waistband, tearing his shorts off, and then Sonny was being groped and squeezed, Hutchinson practically hyperventilating as he rubbed against him. He moaned when Sonny pulled away, but when Sonny told him to turn over, he scrambled over in a second, offering himself up, not even protesting as Sonny tore into him.  
  
*  
  
Sonny was as ungentle as it seemed possible to be, and for Hutch that made it perfect. He needed Sonny's violence, he needed his passion, but he didn't want anybody else's love. He'd had love.  
  
It didn't last long; neither of them could hold off long enough to make it last long. Sonny came, and in a moment, so did Hutch. They stayed still, together, for a few minutes, then Sonny kissed his neck, his shoulder, and pulled away.  
  
They settled themselves together comfortably, still breathing hard.  
  
Sonny was the first one to speak. "Was that your first payment?" he asked.  
  
"That? No. That was—a pact. Blood brothers." It was always blood, the world was covered in blood.  
  
"Half a pact, then," Sonny murmured, not sure how anxious he was to seal the deal.  
  
"More complicated than that. Starsky's blood came first, and now mine. Next will be Vinnie's—you can drink it if you want to, bathe in it while I watch. Then McPike's, and Gunther's."  
  
"And what about mine?" Sonny asked, perplexed, relieved, forsaken.  
  
"When it's all done, and then it's up to you. We close the circle, or we say goodbye." Hutch sighed deeply. "It's up to you," he said again.  
  
But Sonny couldn't sleep yet. "Hutch." He tried out the name. "Hutch. Never Ken."  
  
"My family calls me Ken, my wife did." Hutch's voice sounded sleepy.  
  
"But not your Starsky." Sonny couldn't quite get a hold of how he felt. He wanted to own this man, but he couldn't do that without owning his dead partner.  
  
"Nope. Not my Starsky."  
  
"Why him?" _Why me?_ Wondering when Hutch would refuse him. There had to be a line.  
  
Hutch didn't refuse; he didn't answer at all. He was asleep.  
  
*  
  
The next night they lasted a little longer.  
  
Hutch had ordered dinner, but it sat getting cold while they were getting hot. They got back up, ate the cold dinner, and were back in bed in half an hour, at each other as though they hadn't seen each other in months. It was the craziest thing. When he and Starsky had started, they'd been honeymoon-crazy for each other, but this was more like when he'd been withdrawing. It felt sick; it felt inescapable, immoral, needful—  
  
It felt good.  
  
"It isn't just Terranova," Sonny said. He'd waited until Hutch was almost completely asleep, right on that crimson brink, before he said the words. Hutch didn't say anything, and Sonny went on. "I want that creep he's reporting to, the one he's telling everything to, the one who knows—" He couldn't go on, couldn't say any more.  
  
Hutch could. "It's not enough to kill the betrayer; you have to kill the one he'd betrayed you to; you have to destroy him." Sonny stared at him. "What's his name?" Hutch asked.  
  
"McPike. Frank McPike. And yeah, I want you to destroy him. I want you to rip the words he's heard out of his head—by the time he's gone, I don't want him to be able to remember my name, let alone anything—anything more."  
  
Hutch was nodding. He turned over on his side, facing Sonny, and caught his gaze and said, "I can get to McPike. I'm the hero cop from Los Angeles, remember? I've got a gold shield. If I want him to, he'll see me." He smiled, and settled himself against Sonny, preparing to find his way back to that edge and fall.  
  
*  
  
Hutch spent the next three days by himself. Steelgrave said they needed to think about this, plan it carefully. "Just a little time, make sure we get the details right. We take a couple days, then we get together again, see what we've got."  
  
"What'll I say if someone asks me why I'm here?" The someone, of course, was Terranova.  
  
"Tell 'em to ask me—it'll drive Terranova nuts."  
  
"What've you told him?"  
  
"Nothing. He doesn't know what to think. Maybe I'm trying to buy you," Sonny said, and the words felt like honey. "Good thing I already know you're a cop, since it's pretty clear I don't have my brother's knack at spotting 'em," he added under his breath. "From your end—you're staying here because you're burning out, you're fucked up, half the time you're too drunk to walk to the door without running into a wall on your way. You can fake that, can't you?" Sonny's smile was neither gentle nor kind, it didn't soften the words, it hardened them.  
  
"I'm a fucked up, burned out cop, but I've got a gold shield and a dead partner," Hutch elaborated on Sonny's story. "I'm here to get drunk and forget, but hey, you think I might be for sale." On the last words, his voice dipped to the same tone Sonny had used when talking about buying him. Sonny's smile turned warm; no, it was his eyes that warmed.  
  
"I've got a question," Hutch said just as Sonny was about to leave. Sonny turned to look at him, waited. "What's the practical difference between you popping Terranova and me doing it?"  
  
"Besides if **you** do it, I can watch?" Sonny asked, grinning. "There is none. It's Gunther that's gonna get me out from under. I bring in his territory, I could tell the fucking Commission about Terranova's pillow talk, they'd still welcome me with open arms—at least to my face. I'll spin Terranova's being here as part of the trap, I'll up what I bring into the organization a few million percent, I leapfrog over Patrice, Mahoney, who knows how many other guys—get my own seat on the Commission." Sonny smiled blissfully, and closed the door behind him.  
  
*  
  
Hutch found himself following _Vincenzo_ , needing to know all he could about this Judas, this betrayer. He watched him talking with McPike, imagining it Starsky, conspiring with Dobey to set him up, have him killed. _Starsky would never do that. Dobey would never do it, either._ But these two would, and had. Steelgrave had stood at the window, staring out, talking in a low, detached voice, about how _Vincenzo_ had set him up, wormed his way in, played him to get where he was. Hutch could feel his pain from across the room. These two weren't just trying to bring Sonny down, they'd set him up for torture and murder by his own people. He was too big for the DA to be willing to offer to plead him out, put him in Witness Protection, so he'd be left to the inevitable—Hutch knew, every cop knew, what the mob did to anyone who brought in a fed. And Sonny had treated Terranova like a brother. It wasn't something cops did, not good cops, not clean cops. _And if having a fed in his house wasn't enough, they had the trump card of having him in his bed._ _Sonny's been dead since the moment_ Vincenzo _batted those big blue eyes at him._  
  
After McPike, _Vincenzo_ went to Brooklyn, to visit his girlfriend. Hutch wondered what she'd do if she knew what he'd been doing the night before, begging Sonny Steelgrave to shove his dick up him. Slam the door in his face, or cum her brains out? Hell, maybe she did know, maybe that was _Vincenzo's_ foreplay, telling her what he'd done the night before in the boss's bed.  
  
_You're cracking up,_ Starsky's voice warned him, only it didn't really feel like a warning. It felt more like—like—like amusement. _You're cracking up, Blondie. You know that, right? You wouldn't've really killed a fed when I was with you, would you?_  
  
I dunno, Starsk. What about Agent Bettin? You remember him, the guy who didn't mind girls getting raped and tortured, as long as he got what he wanted?  
  
_All right, maybe him. But Sonny Steelgrave's no innocent._  
  
Neither was Joe Durniak, but he was your father's friend.  
  
Starsky's voice subsided, and Hutch wished he hadn't won the argument.  
  
Anyway, it's not about Steelgrave's innocence, it's about their guilt! They're cops, even if they are feds, you don't— **we** don't do this, it's not right!  
  
_You care about right?_  
  
I care about **you. You** care about right.  
  
_I care about you._ His tone gentled. _I care about you._  
  
Hutch didn't ask himself why he was identifying with a mobster; he already knew. Sonny had touched him, his pain, his hopeless love for his _Vincenzo,_ and looking at Sonny's pain, at Sonny's situation, was better than feeling his own, it was a distraction, everything was a distraction from the vibrations in his head that tapped out one message over and over: _who cares? What does it matter? Just give up._  
  
He waited for his conscience to tell him he couldn't do this, but he'd buried his conscience—first there'd been a ceremony in Los Angeles, then the official funeral in New York. His conscience was officially dead. He thought about Gunther, dead—annihilated, and the peace he hoped it would give him. He wanted to die—he couldn't think of one good reason to go on living, except to see Gunther in the ground before he packed it in. He didn't think about Starsky; he didn't have to. Starsky was a constant hum in his head, he was the crash of the waves, he was the beat of Hutch's heart—just as he'd been in the pulse at Steelgrave's throat as he fucked Hutch late into the night. There was the beloved blood he saw every time he looked at his hands. There was no "thinking of Starsky" or "not thinking of Starsky." There was only the world, dripping with blood, with Starsky everywhere in it—and nowhere Hutch could touch.  
  
Steelgrave said he'd call twice a day, and Hutch kept himself sober for those calls. Since he knew if he started drinking he wouldn't stop, that meant he couldn't start.  
  
By the third day, Hutch's hands were shaking when he went to shave. He needed distraction, he craved it. When Steelgrave called the first time, he found himself saying, "When am I going to see you again?" and he could hear the desperation in his voice.  
  
Steelgrave did too, and it made him laugh. "Got it bad, huh?"  
  
"You ever had anybody take a header off one of these balconies?" Hutch asked, which only made Sonny laugh harder.  
  
"Skip your beach-combing tonight, turn in early."  
  
But Steelgrave didn't arrive early. It was after midnight when he finally got there, and when he did, he looked—not rumpled, but his creases were off, like a bed hastily remade, an aureole around him the color of blood sluicing down the drain, and he smelled of sex. Hutch didn't know if he'd been with Terranova, or some girl, and he didn't care.  
  
Well, yeah, he did. Very much. And the self-satisfied smirk on Sonny's face didn't make him feel any better. He came into the room like a cat on the prowl.  
  
"So, what's up?" He was lounging in the bedroom doorway.  
  
"I thought we needed to talk. Make plans."  
  
"Getting tired of living the good life?"  
  
"If that's what you want to call it." Hutch could feel his temper rising, even though he knew that was what Steelgrave was going for.  
  
Steelgrave just stood there, looking at him for what felt like a very long time, then he moved from the doorway to the dark red sofa and sat down. "Okay. Come on over, sit down, let's talk."  
  
Hutch did, sitting on the other end of the crimson sofa, feeling like a virgin trying to avoid the clutches of a wolf. It made him feel ridiculous.  
  
"I want to know when we're going to do this," Hutch said. "I want—look, if all you're going to do is string me along, I've got another way out—"  
  
Sonny leaned closer to him, not touching him, but the closeness was like a calming caress. "I've been setting things up. When this starts, it's got to go fast, because when they realize Terranova's missing, the feds are gonna grab me. Now, you don't want to have to wait until they've finished their investigation to go after Gunther, do you?"  
  
Hutch shook his head.  
  
"I didn't think so. So this's what I've come up with. Terranova checks in once a day, when nothing's going on, and he's gotta make that check-in by six p.m. So once he calls, he's set 'til the next day, at six. That gives us twenty-four hours right there. I told him I've got a trip to LA in the works, but the details aren't set yet. But this is how it's going to work: he makes his last call to his 'bookie,' then meets me. He'll know I'll have him busy all night. He won't be expected to call in again until he's in LA, and the trip itself should buy some time.  
  
"We'll be together on the plane six hours at least, and that doesn't include all the shit at the airports, travel to and from—they're going to have to cut him a lotta slack on this. And no matter how worried his Lifeguard is, he won't be able to get a hold of McPike. We've caught a piece of luck there—McPike's been kicked out of the marital bed, he's living in some crummy hotel. You won't have to worry about the wife and son. I figure the search is gonna start there, with McPike, so you make sure you get rid of the body good. They won't know whether there's a connection between Vinnie's disappearance and McPike's—hell, they might think they've run off together, who knows? But they're going to be looking here for McPike and in LA for Vinnie, at least to start, and they won't know where to look there. They'll be looking for me, too, I'm sure, but they won't know where. They'll have to coordinate with the LA feds—and the locals. You think that'll be easy?"  
  
Hutch shook his head. "How do you know so much about how all this works?" he asked.  
  
Sonny shrugged. "Know your enemy," he answered shortly. "You know how **my** operations work." Hutch nodded; it was true. "They might want to pull me in for questioning, but they aren't going to know where I am. I'll make a hotel reservation, but we won't be staying there, we'll be staying in a house a friend of mine's got at the beach. He's not there, he'll never know the difference. It'll take 'em time, but none of it will be anything I can't explain later. The big thing is, the deal with Gunther's got to be arranged before we do anything here." Sonny shook his head. "And I'll be damned if I can figure out how to do it."  
  
*  
  
They were lingering over a late Sunday breakfast. It was that kind of day—dreary, threatening rain but never quite delivering on that threat. They sat by the window, eating by what meager light it had to let in.  
  
"You know you can't go back." The time was getting close and Sonny was getting edgy.  
  
Hutch's mouth was a thin line. He shook his head marginally. "I've killed people before."  
  
Sonny turned to stare out the window, towards the skyline. "You've killed them, but how many have you murdered? How many feds, murdered in cold blood?"  
  
"Nothing cold about my blood," Hutch muttered. "And what're you griping about anyway? You want Gunther dead too."  
  
Sonny turned away from the view, back towards the cop—ex-cop—whatever. "Yeah, but my outlook is a bit more financial and politically long-range, I think."  
  
Hutch shifted a little and shrugged. "I think my outlook is a little **more** long-range than yours, but maybe not so political." He sounded as though he was talking to himself again, and Sonny thought, for not the first time, _This guy is really screwed up._ "Dead's about as long-range as it gets, huh?"  
  
"Yeah. I'll give you that one. Question is, how're we going to get to him? I don't think he's going to be inviting either of us to his club for brandy and cigars. He knows we both want him, he's not gonna come down out of that ivory tower so we can use him for target practice."  
  
"Yeah, but he wants **me,** too. He wants me **bad**. He's not going to just stay holed up in his tower. Maybe if he knows where I am, he'll come after me. I'm surprised he didn't try for me at Starsky's memorial service in LA." Then, sarcastically, "Maybe the three thousand, two hundred and one other police officers discouraged him."  
  
Sonny gave an abrupt laugh. "Maybe," he agreed. "Maybe. But there are time factors involved here. We're going to have to come up with some kind of plan." He paused to finish his coffee, then, changing the subject, "You and your partner knew Joey Durniak." A statement, nothing else. He had done his research very carefully this time. Nobody was ever going to surprise him again, ever.  
  
"Yes. Durniak paid to bury Starsky's father."  
  
"Who paid to bury your partner?" _Never ask a question you don't know the answer to._  
  
" **I** paid for it," Hutch replied, his voice harsh and angry, his eyes dangerous. "I'm still paying for it. I'll pay for it the rest of my life." He got up from his chair and walked over to the dark red sofa; pulled a thick red envelope out of his inside jacket pocket, and tossed it onto the table in front of Sonny. It hit with a heavy thud. "First installment," he said shortly.  
  
Sonny opened the envelope carefully. There was cash inside. He flipped through it casually. At least $500,000. In $1,000 bills, no less. The amount didn't surprise him at all; his investigation hadn't stopped with Hutch's life as a cop. The cash itself was a surprise.  
  
"What's this for?"  
  
Hutch shrugged, turned and walked over to sit on the crimson sofa. "Call it a sign of good faith. Or a small token of my affections, if you like." He smiled at Sonny over the back of the sofa.  
  
_"Conoscete che cosa dico che? 'Gunther è buono quanto sepolto anche'?"_ he asked, grinning now.  
  
Hutch smiled slowly and inclined his head in acknowledgment gracefully. "I know what it means, _sì._ " His face looked like an angel's. "'Gunther's as good as buried, too.' _Sono corretto_?"  
  
Sonny's grin grew wider.  
  
"Wanna fuck, Boss?" Hutch asked, his voice a deep shiver.  
  
Sonny laughed. "What's this, the next installment, already?"  
  
"I haven't even begun to pay you."  
  
Afterward, when they'd caught their breath, Sonny asked him, "What's it like?" and then "Do you dream about him?"  
  
Hutch shrugged. "Awake, asleep, it doesn't make any difference, he's just always there. Always there. I don't think I dream anymore. Nothing I do makes any difference. I kept trying to get drunk enough that I wouldn't feel anything, but that didn't work, it makes everything—slurry, but he's still there."  
  
"You want him gone?" Sonny asked. His eyes were glittery with an obsessive longing.  
  
"I want some peace," Hutch said, trying not to let the bitterness into his voice. "I don't see him happy and alive, I see him breathing out his own blood, his body all torn up on the cement, I see—all I can hear is myself, screaming— I just want some peace."  
  
"So do I," Sonny agreed, and there was frightening bitterness in his voice. "The difference is, your Starsky didn't betray you—"  
  
"Oh, yes, he did," Hutch interrupted. "He betrayed me—he left me! I begged him not to, but he wouldn't stay, he wouldn't—" _I am not going to break down! I am not going to cry in front of this man!_ "He betrayed me worse than Terranova did you," he added softly. "You want him gone? I can't promise you that. Dead, yeah, dead's easy. But you'll have to get him out of your dreams on your own. There's nothing I can do for your dreams."  
  
Sonny's feral smile slid through him like the needle had, as his hand slid through his hair. "Oh, I think there's something you can do for my dreams, too."  
  
Hutch smiled back. He couldn't deny how much he enjoyed this distraction, but he knew that was all it was—distraction. He could tell Sonny that, but what would be the point? One thing he'd learned quickly was, the man believed what he wanted to believe.  
  
*  
  
In the end, the way to get to Gunther was so easy it would have been laughable, if Sonny had been in a mood to be amused. After a long dinner and two bottles of very good wine, Hutch said, "Why don't you just get in touch with Gunther, tell him about the proposal I made you, and tell him you're selling me to him?"  
  
Sonny shook his head. "No, it's too straightforward, he'd think it was a trap. You want some dessert?"  
  
"Shouldn't we get this worked out first?" Hutch asked, and Sonny laughed, went to get the profiteroles out of the refrigerator.  
  
"The base idea's not bad, but it needs some blood." He put the plate of profiteroles on the table, put a couple on Hutch's plate, and sat back down.  
  
"I thought I was the one who wanted Gunther's blood." Hutch picked up his fork, touched the top of one of profiteroles.  
  
Sonny took the fork out of his hand. "You eat it with your fingers."  
  
Hutch picked one up, looked at it, put it back down.  
  
"Not hungry?" Sonny asked, then realizing this was something about his Starsky, said, "How about a double cross? I contact Gunther, say that Mahoney brought you here, stashed you in a penthouse, didn't tell me why, but you had a few too many in the bar and I got you talking. I offer to sell him out if he takes Mahoney out for me, and I get Mahoney's action and some of Gunther's East Coast action."  
  
Hutch picked up his fork again, cut one of the profiteroles in half, sat looking at it. "'Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.' It's a sneaky plan," he said at last, put down the fork and picked up one half of the little dessert. Looking at it seemed to be causing him pain. Sonny took it from his fingers, stuck it in Hutch's mouth.  
  
"That's why it'll work." Sonny picked up the other half of the profiterole, put it in his mouth, chewed it, swallowed. "I'll make the call in the morning."  
  
*  
  
The message Sonny left was simple: "Hutchinson." And his phone number. His phone rang ten minutes later, and it was James Marshall Gunther himself on the phone.  
  
Talking to Gunther was like talking to an alien—a reptile with human intelligence, but without the human feeling. His voice sounded like dry ice, burning with its cold. But Sonny knew how to play it cool, too; he'd dealt with Patrice, after all. When Gunther expressed his doubts about Sonny's information, Sonny laughed, told him to watch his back, and hung up.  
  
The phone rang again twenty minutes later. Sonny let it ring five times before he answered. Without preamble, Gunther asked why Sonny was telling him this, and Sonny laid out the deal for him. When Gunther laughed his frostbite laugh, Sonny hung up again.  
  
This time the phone rang again almost immediately. Sonny let it ring until it stopped ringing, but he answered it when it rang again, and Gunther sounded angry. He told Sonny to stop hanging up on him. Sonny told him to quit wasting his time. The foreplay over, they got down to business. Gunther didn't agree to all of Sonny's terms—Sonny had to come down quite a bit—but eventually they came to an accord. Gunther did agree to the most important term, the one non-negotiable one: that he come himself, alone. When he'd balked at that, Sonny had told him he'd take care of the wet work—for a fee—but he wasn't going to do it, or be part of it, with witnesses.  
  
Sonny had ended the conversation by telling Gunther he should be hearing from Mahoney soon—it had taken a while to get Hutchinson dried out, but now that he was, he'd be ready to deal. When that happened, Gunther was to call Sonny back and they could make their plans.  
  
Hutch had been half-lying in a chair, long legs stretched out in front of him, listening to the whole thing. As Sonny hung up the phone, he turned to smile at him. "I think we forgot something," Hutch said. His eyes looked frighteningly distant. Sonny wanted to slap him, to get him back from wherever he was.  
  
Instead he snapped, "What?"  
  
"Mahoney. Mahoney's not going to call, he doesn't know anything about this, right?"  
  
"Of course he doesn't know anything about this!" Sonny was irritated. If he hadn't known better, he'd have thought Hutch had scored, but unless he'd done it in the bathroom, that wasn't possible; they'd been together all night. Whatever was wrong with him came from inside himself.  
  
"Then how's he going to call Gunther?"  
  
"He's not. I am."  
  
Hutch shook his head, not following, so Sonny pulled a chair up across from him and sat down. "Sit up straight." And when Hutch had, "I'm going to tell him Mahoney doesn't want to handle it personally, that he laid out the deal to me and put me in charge of it. I'm gonna laugh my ass off at that—"  
  
"You think he'll believe you?" Hutch interrupted. He seemed to be looking at something over Sonny's shoulder, and Sonny had to suppress the urge to turn around and look.  
  
"He'll believe me," he told Hutch firmly. "He wants you so bad, I could tell him just about anything now and he'd buy it. So, I tell him I'll be calling him back in a little while, with Mahoney in the room listening, and we make the deal. Whatever arrangements we come up with are going to have to stick, because I'm going to tell him you know the details and I can't make changes because you don't trust me—" That got a smile from Hutch, though Sonny wasn't sure just what he was smiling about. He leaned closer to Hutch. "So, where do you want me to do it?"  
  
Hutch smiled again. "In the conservatory, with the candlestick?" he asked.  
  
Sonny was sure he couldn't be drunk, either, but he was acting so strange— Was remorse kicking in? He didn't have time for remorse. Sonny got up, standing over Hutchinson, staring down at him. "Look, you can't back out now—"  
  
Hutch rose suddenly, grabbed Sonny's shoulders, and kissed him. "Where do I want to do it? In the bedroom, any position you want, and we can talk out the details there!" He released Sonny, turned, and walked to the bedroom, stripping off his clothes as he went.  
  
Sonny followed him. Maybe a good fuck would snap him out of this.  
  
*  
  
"We clear on everything?" Sonny asked. He was tying his tie, getting ready to go to the office. People had been commenting on how much time he was spending away, and that was not a good thing. "We're doing Terranova tomorrow night. I'm meeting him at the motel at six. You know how to get there?"  
  
"Yeah. I've got the directions right here." Hutch touched his pocket.  
  
"Good." For some reason, Sonny couldn't seem to get the tie to do what he wanted it to. Hutch came over to stand behind him, put his arms around his neck, and untied the tie. "There's sliding glass doors on the ground floor. They're supposed to be sealed shut, but they're easy enough to open from the inside. I told him to get the room at the end, away from the office. You'll know when to come in."  
  
"How'd you get him to go along with this?" Hutch asked, though he already knew the answer. The tie was untied; now he began slowly retying it correctly.  
  
Sonny's smile in the mirror was serene. "He does what I tell him to, remember?"  
  
Hutch laughed. "Yeah. But why a motel?"  
  
"What'd I tell him? That I thought it would be fun. What's the real reason? I don't want his blood all over my place. And he deserves to die in a trashy motel."  
  
Hutch nodded.  
  
"Sure you can do this?" Sonny asked. They were still looking at each other in the mirror.  
  
"No problem, Boss. No problem at all."  
  
*  
  
"I did like you said, Sonny," Vinnie told him as he let him in the motel room. "This is the trashiest place I could find. Hell," he added with amused pride, "this is the trashiest place I've ever seen. I never knew you were into slumming, but I figured if we were gonna do it, we ought'a do it right."  
  
Sonny shrugged. "Never have been, but I wanted to go someplace nobody knew us." He looked around the room, taking in the ugly, puke-colored paint peeling off the walls, the bedspread a dissonant pattern of faded-to-unidentifiable shades, the garage sale-reject lamps, resisting the inappropriate urge to laugh. "This place's horrible. You did good. You bring the food?"  
  
"Even brought a bottle of champagne," Vinnie said. His smile was—happy—heartbreaking. "'Course, if I'd seen this place first, I'd've brought Ripple."  
  
Sonny laughed, really amused, and it made his chest hurt.  
  
Vinnie snagged the two Styrofoam cups from the bathroom and they sat down on the bed to eat the Chinese food he'd brought. "What's the big occasion?"  
  
Sonny started opening cartons, checking the contents. "Idiot. The Rainbow Room's for an occasion. This's just—I missed you." Sonny smiled at him. The sad thing was, it was true.  
  
Vinnie looked up from the fortune cookie he'd been about to open, and what Sonny saw in his face was the one thing he wanted most and least. "Yeah," Vinnie agreed. "Wha'd I do to piss you off, anyhow?"  
  
"Nothin'," Sonny said, starting to gather up the cartons and put them on the floor. "Just stuff going on." He took the cookie out of Vinnie's hand and dropped it on the bedside table. "Food'll heat up fine," he said, and leaned forward to kiss Vinnie on the mouth.  
  
They were stripped and under the covers in a matter of minutes. Vinnie's big body felt good, felt comfortable, but he had none of Hutch's—irrationality. Sonny had no idea when that had become a turn-on, but now he found he missed it, and that thinking of Hutch lurking around outside was what really had him jazzed up.  
  
He was lying on his back, knees cocked, Vinnie's head between his thighs doing delicious things to him. Part of him was wishing he had never started this, that he and Vinnie could just roll around on the sheets, eat their cold Chinese food, and go back to the hotel—and not just the part that Vinnie had in his mouth. But that was no longer possible, and the reason wasn't the crazy blond man waiting in the shadows, it was what Vinnie had done to him, what Vinnie was. He wasn't just a cop, he was Sonny's own private Judas, and when he had everything he wanted, he was going to hand Sonny over to the Romans for execution. Only one of them could come out of this alive.  
  
Sonny opened his eyes. He didn't think he'd heard anything, but he saw Hutch standing behind Vinnie, looking like a golden shadow. His eyes met Hutch's and he reached out to put his hand on Vinnie's head, tangling his fingers in the lush, dark hair. "Stop," he gasped, staring into Hutch's eyes, pulling at Vinnie's hair. "Stop—"  
  
Vinnie released him lifted his head to stare at him blankly. "Wha—wassa matter? I thought you were almost ready to—" His voice was thick with its own passion.  
  
Hutch's hand replaced Sonny's in Vinnie's hair, jerked his head back. With the other hand he slashed the straight-razor across the taut skin, severing one of Vinnie's carotids. The warm blood gushed out, splashing Sonny the way his cum had. Hutch pushed the body out of the way and climbed between Sonny's legs. He grabbed Sonny's hips in his big, strong hands, and took his dick deep into his throat. It was all Sonny needed; in a few minutes he was coming, hard and desperate, screaming Vinnie's name.  
  
*  
  
Sonny lay spent, eyes half closed, listening to Hutch clean up in the bathroom. He stood for a moment in the doorway, backlit by the bathroom light; the light seemed to seek him out, collect in his hair, on his skin. _Like an angel on a Christmas tree,_ Sonny thought, and smiled to himself. The light went out with a soft click. The moon had gone behind threatening clouds and made the night dark as pitch. Hutch walked across the room, gone from a source light to a shadow moving among other shadows. He knew where Hutch was going, but he didn't know how long he'd be gone.  
  
"It could take a long time," Hutch said. He'd picked up the bag with his clean clothes in it. "It could take a very long time. How long do you want it to take?"  
  
If the question was designed to incite, it worked beautifully. Sonny was off the bed in an instant, had Hutch on the floor, away from Vinnie's body, away from the blood. He'd only got his shirt on, not even buttoned. Sonny was between his legs, shoving in, no thought of lube, no thought of anything but getting inside him. Hutch was laughing—he'd been expecting this, and had prepared for it.  
  
They'd talked practically the whole time they fucked. Not dirty talk; certainly not sweet nothings in the darkness. Talk of McPike's murder—ideas impossible, elaborate, extreme, unspeakable. No, not unspeakable; they'd said the words. "You want the words Terranova said wiped from McPike's brain forever?" Hutch had asked, and when Sonny grinned his assent, he'd continued, "You want me to bring you back his head, so you can check?"  
  
That had flared Sonny's lust white hot—both the carelessness of the question and the knowledge that he'd do it, if Sonny said yes. It had made them both come like crazy.  
  
"Don't do anything stupid and get caught," Sonny said as Hutch got up, smoothing the worry into an insult.  
  
"Try not to," Hutch agreed, then added gratuitously, "I can smell you all over me." He laughed as he pulled his shirt closed and started buttoning it, a nasty laugh at a private joke.  
  
" **What**?" Sonny demanded.  
  
"I just thought—" he glanced at Vinnie's body. "Nothing."  
  
Sonny got up, walked over to him. " **What**?"  
  
Hutch grinned, laughed again as though he couldn't help himself. "I was just thinking—I wonder if McPike will recognize the smell."  
  
Sonny had nearly grabbed him again then; would have, if time had not been an element. Maybe they shouldn't have stopped to consummate this next level of their bargain, but Sonny had the idea that burying bodies was easier if you didn't have a second shovel handle in your pants.  
  
*  
  
"Be back later," Hutch had said, and after he'd gone, Sonny had cleaned up and proceeded to wait. Hutch had refused to tell him what he was going to do; he insisted that the surprise was part of the present, but Sonny hated waiting more than just about anything else. And he was still so goddamned **hard**. He had tried to talk Hutch into calling him from McPike's, letting him listen, but Hutch had sensibly refused. "You know the cops'll be checking the phone records. They'll trace a call to here, then they'll come and find Terranova's blood all over the place, then—"  
  
"Yeah, yeah, you're right," Sonny broke in to concede.  
  
"Unless you want to spend your time trying to sanitize this place, wipe away any trace—"  
  
"All right, I said you were right! Now get going!"  
  
Hutch laughed and left, closing the door behind him."  
  
*  
  
What was Hutchinson **doing**? Sonny couldn't stop thinking about it. Had he done it clean and simple, was he burying the bodies already or was McPike still alive, wishing he was dead, begging for death—  
  
Dammit, he was so fucking **hard** — Sonny unzipped his slacks, resisted the urge to put his hand down them. When Hutchinson got back, he was going to make him tell him every last detail while Sonny fucked his brains out.  
  
*  
  
Where the hell was Hutchinson? It was starting to get light out, he wasn't back, he hadn't called. Had he taken care of McPike, was he burying the bodies, was he on his way back, or—  
  
Sonny's hard-on felt as though it had become a permanent condition, and his balls ached from it.  
  
It couldn't be a set-up—Hutchinson had slit Vinnie's throat, there was no way he could have gone to the cops, it just wasn't possible. And Vinnie was most definitely dead—his blood was all over the room, and even if it were washed from Sonny's skin, the smell of it wouldn't go away.  
  
Sonny paced, and stared out the window, and looked at his watch. Where was he? Had he just taken off, disappeared as abruptly as he'd appeared in Sonny's life? But he'd only paid his part of the bargain, he hadn't gotten what he'd come there for. What reason could he possibly have for cutting out without getting the very thing he'd sold his soul for?  
  
For God's sake, they had a fucking plane to catch!  
  
"Hey, Boss." Sonny turned from the window to see Hutch standing, leaning against the door. He had come into the apartment silently, as silently as he had come into the hotel room. He was wearing a long, dark trench coat, something that he must have picked up at the Salvation Army. It hung open, and Sonny could see the blood spatters on his jeans, on his sweatshirt. His sneakers, Sonny noticed, while hardly clean, showed no blood at all. "Where the fuck have you been?" Sonny growled.  
  
"Taking care of things. Been waiting long?" His teasing tone annoyed the hell out of Sonny.  
  
"Do you know what time it is? We've got a flight out at—"  
  
"I know what time our flight is," Hutch cut in. He pulled off his coat, dropped it on the floor, pulled off his sweatshirt and let it fall on top of the coat. After than he kicked his shoes off, and his pants joined the pile of clothes. He wasn't wearing any socks or underwear. He was as hard as Sonny, and for the same reason. Death as an aphrodisiac.  
  
Sonny stared at him, at the odd brownish splotches all over Hutch's body. It looked as if the White Knight was rusting. "What the hell?"  
  
Hutch walked toward him, turning on all the lights as he came. "You're not ready," he said, grabbing Sonny, hand going to his crotch. He found the open zipper. "Well, maybe you are," he admitted. "But you've gotta get out of the rest of this shit." This second time he undressed Sonny with far greater efficiency, and far less care, ripping fabric, tearing off buttons, getting to skin as fast as he could. When they were both naked, Hutch's hand wrapped around Sonny's dick. "You **have** been waiting for me, haven't you?"  
  
"What happened? Where the hell have you been?"  
  
Hutch gave his cock a squeeze. "Did you know there's a theory that Lizzie Borden killed her parents in the nude and that's why there was never any blood-stained clothes to be found?"  
  
"What?" Sonny demanded in angry bafflement.  
  
"Starsky told me that; he was a big Borden murder buff, read all the books, loved that TV movie—"  
  
"What the fuck are you—" And then he got it—the rust-colored blotches were dried blood, and that explained why there were more of them on Hutch's skin than there had been on his clothes—they had soaked through the other way. "Oh—"  
  
"You want me to tell you about it?"  
  
Sonny nearly screamed, with the exquisite pleasure, with frustration. "Talk to me, you bastard—where the hell have you been?"  
  
"Why don't we get more comfortable?" Hutch suggested. "I'd like to get a lot more comfortable."  
  
Sonny didn't have time to answer; he was being forced down on his back, his legs pulled apart.  
  
"Comfortable?" Hutch asked.  
  
"What the fuck are you doing?" Sonny asked, for the first time feeling—not afraid, but unsettled. He knew Hutch was nuts, but until now he hadn't been—  
  
Not afraid. He wasn't afraid. He was just a little unsettled.  
  
"You got the verb right." Hutch was grinning at him. "Question is, is that what I'm going to be doing? Did you ever let _Vincenzo_ inside you, or would I be the first?"  
  
_First?_ Sonny's brain stuttered a little at the thought, but he was so horny, he wasn't sure he **cared** what they did, as long as they did **something**. "Yeah," he agreed. "You'll be the first."  
  
Hutch's smile grew wider. "Good. Good. But I'm not quite ready yet." His hand went back to Sonny's dick, squeezing, pulling. "I'd like to suck you, but it's so hard to talk with your mouth full. But you don't have much to say. I know, why don't **you** suck **me** , while I tell you all about it? Doesn't that sound like a good idea?"  
  
Sonny couldn't seem to form words, but then, Hutch didn't seem to care. He squeezed Sonny once, hard, then let go and scooted around so he was lying with his crotch very close to Sonny's face.  
  
Sonny hadn't done this before, but when Hutch started talking it somehow got easier. "Let me tell you a story," he murmured as Sonny took his cock into his mouth. He kept talking with remarkable articulateness, considering everything. And the things he said. The things he said . . . . The super-sized dick in his mouth was the least of his, uh, concerns. Still, he didn't neglect it, and what he lacked in proficiency, he hoped he made up for in enthusiasm. Hutch wasn't complaining, anyway. Hutch was talking to him, his tone sensual and dreamy, telling him how he got McPike to open his door by claiming to have tracked him down after seeing him at Starsky's funeral, how he pretended to be drunk and how McPike, with a mixture of exasperation and pity, grudgingly let him in. "That was his first mistake," Hutch said, and he laughed.  
  
It wasn't the last time he laughed while he told his story, while he talked about tying up McPike, about what he did with the straight razor, and how he had talked to McPike about his Vinnie the whole, long time. "Doesn't know he's dead—didn't know he's dead, whatever, he thinks I left him tied up someplace, bleeding—thought, he thought—oh, God, who can think of verb tenses when you're doing **that**?" Hutch demanded, and thrust in, hard, close, ready. Nothing Hutch said after that was particularly eloquent or memorable, and after that he had Sonny's dick in his mouth and Sonny didn't care that he couldn't talk, and they both went crazy.  
  
*  
  
Hutch ate the forgotten Chinese food before they went to the airport, and Sonny sat watching him, as he'd sat watching him methodically clean up the blood, as he'd watched him shower, and shave. He hadn't joined him in the shower; Sonny liked his privacy in the bathroom, even if it was just brushing his teeth, but he couldn't take his eyes off this lunatic he seemed to own.  
  
And Hutch liked being watched. Every move he made was just for Sonny's—approval? Entertainment? Arousal? Whichever, he was succeeding on all fronts.  
  
Sonny had heard stories like what he'd experienced last night—well, without the sex. He'd grown up with them, horror stories that somehow weren't, that were told with pride, and amusement, and a certain jealous awe, about how a guy in power would keep a loyal, eager psychotic around, to keep predators at bay, and to teach a lesson to anyone stupid enough to make a move against him. He'd thought he understood everything about that, but it was only the logistics of it he understood. What he hadn't known was how it made you feel, to have someone who would do the unspeakable for you, do it smiling. It made you feel like a god.  
  
It was a pity he couldn't keep this blond menace around permanently.  
  
*  
  
Hutch slept the whole flight back home—home? What home? His every bone ached with weariness, and his eyes closed the second he took his seat. The last thing he knew was Steelgrave buckling his seat belt for him.  
  
Getting off the plane, he automatically looked for Starsky. His partner had always met him at the gate, always parked where he wasn't allowed to, always got a ticket for it—and once the Torino got towed, when Hutch's flight was late. When Hutch had suggested he try using airport parking, Starsky had refused. "Have you seen what they charge for parking? It's extortion! Anyway, if I've gotta pay somebody, I'd rather pay **us**."  
  
"Pay us?" Hutch had asked, not getting it.  
  
"Sure. If I pay to park in the airport parking, I'm paying the airport. If I pay a parking ticket, I'm paying the city, who pays us. I'd rather pay us. Anyway, one day I'm gonna get away with it. I can't quit 'til I do."  
  
Starsky was there waiting for him, the familiar airport, the familiar streets, the familiar—  
  
It was a waste of time to keep thinking that; he was everywhere. He was nowhere. It was all familiar, but it was all wrong, Starsky was no longer a part of it—no longer a **living** part of it. His fingerprints were all over it, of course. Hutch could see them everywhere, blood red.  
  
Sonny had been to Los Angeles before, but not **his** Los Angeles. "You live here on purpose?" he asked about Hutch's apartment, which for some reason made Hutch laugh.  
  
It was the perfect place to kill Gunther. Hutch could leave him there, with all the things he wouldn't need anymore, and the message would be clear for anyone who wanted to read it. He had to admit, that was one thing he liked about the Sicilians—leaving messages was something he could have learned to enjoy.  
  
He'd watched Sonny pace as they waited for Gunther, watched him move, thinking about him moving. Sonny wasn't nervous, he just wasn't very good at stillness. Starsky had been just as fluid, but more . . . playful in his movement. And he'd been good at stillness.  
  
"You're sure this is how you want it?" Sonny asked him, and Hutch said that it was. It was what Gunther deserved, to die the way Starsky had, with only Hutch watching him, not bleeding to death but breathing his own blood, drowning in it. "I got shot in January. One'a the bullets nicked a lung." Sonny said it off-handedly.  
  
Hutch had seen the scars, of course, knew what they were, but he hadn't asked. Now he looked at Sonny, into his drowning pool eyes. "What was it like?"  
  
"It was like last night, only without the sex," Sonny said, smiling at him, coming over to touch him. Then, "Vinnie saved my life."  
  
And Hutch touched back. "Saving you so he could do it himself—does **that** count?" he asked.  
  
They waited, talked, touched occasionally when they couldn't help themselves. They wouldn't do more in Hutch's apartment; this place was Starsky-tinged, Starsky-shot, Starsky-stained. Hutch watched as Sonny moved around the living room, effortlessly picking up and examining nearly every item Starsky had given him, touching nothing else. Hutch didn't want to know how he knew, if he even knew he knew.  
  
Gunther, of course, didn't come alone. He never went anywhere alone, and Hutch doubted he ever kept his word as a purposeful act; if what he did matched what he said he was going to do, it was mere coincidence.  
  
They were both sitting on the couch as Gunther and his two men entered the apartment. They had heard the footsteps and Steelgrave had the muzzle of the .38 pressed tightly against the side of Hutchinson's head. Both of them, understandably, looked grim.  
  
Gunther walked right over to him, slowly, but directly, his eyes on Hutch's the whole time: a man taking pleasure at walking safely up to a lion who couldn't harm him. "Hutchinson. How good to see you." He sounded as though he thought he was hosting a benefit.  
  
"Yeah, it's real great to see you, too," Hutch snarled back at him, hoping Sonny could keep a straight face.  
  
"And Mr. Steelgrave," Gunther said, turning his gaze on Sonny. "How good of you to bring me my—present. And you kept your word—you came alone. How—quaint."  
  
"I'm Sicilian," Sonny snapped back. "I always keep my word."  
  
"'Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line,'" Hutch said again, though it didn't sound like he was talking to anybody in the room.  
  
"I'm sorry," Gunther lied. "Of course you do. But you won't mind if my men search the—premises." He said the word with disgust that sounded as though he found the place a personal affront. Hutch wondered if seeing the motel room he and Sonny had slept in the night before would have been enough to kill him, and laughed. No one paid any attention.  
  
Sonny waved his free hand expansively. "Be my guest."  
  
"Be mine," Hutch murmured.  
  
When Gunther looked at him curiously, Sonny explained, "He's a little—happy right now. I wanted to assure his cooperation."  
  
Gunther nodded in satisfaction, then motioned to his bodyguards, who went off to check out the apartment. It didn't take long. When they came back, Gunther told them to frisk Sonny.  
  
"He's got a .38 in his hand," Hutch pointed out to the bodyguards. "You don't want to miss that."  
  
"He's going to hand it to me," Gunther said to Sonny, and Sonny shrugged.  
  
"That makes him your problem instead of mine," he said, and surrendered his gun. One of the bodyguards checked Sonny for more weapons, found none, and shook his head. "Are they mute?" Sonny asked. Hutch clamped his jaw tight; now the SOB was trying to make **him** laugh.  
  
Gunther ignored the frivolous question. "Go wait in the car," he told the two possibly mute men. "There's no need for any witnesses," he said, as though Sonny hadn't said the exact thing to him on the phone, as though he was the first person ever to think of that, and he locked the door behind them. "What did you give him?" he asked Sonny.  
  
"A little smack. He has a taste for it." Off Gunther's look of surprise, Sonny added, "You didn't know that?"  
  
"I had no idea." Gunther sounded both shocked and rather pleased.  
  
"Something you didn't know. Hard to believe." Hutch looked over at the greenhouse, at the plants that were dying. Sonny and Gunther were talking about something—money, maybe. Hutch glanced up and saw Gunther take an envelope from his breast pocket.  
  
"I have it right here," he said, looking at it. "But I'm not entirely sure why I should give it to you," and he put it back, returning his attention to Sonny. "There are only the three of us in the room, and I have the only gun." He motioned with it, and Hutch wondered if he'd ever shot anyone. He certainly held the gun as if he hadn't.  
  
Sonny was nodding, looking very serious. "That's not quite true. You have a gun, but unfortunately for you, it's not loaded. Now, Kenny, here, his gun has a full clip. Isn't that right, Kenny?" Hutch took the .357 from where it was cradled between his thigh and the arm of the sofa.  
  
Gunther's mouth was open, but no words were coming out. He pulled the trigger a couple of times, but no bullets came out.  
  
"There is one thing we agree on, and that's that witnesses are a bad idea," Sonny said. "That car of yours has a phone, doesn't it?"  
  
Gunther was staring at the gun in Hutch's hand. Sonny stood up, took the gun from Gunther's hand, and slapped him, hard. "I asked you a question. Does your car have a telephone?"  
  
"Yes, it—what you're doing is a mistake. Mr. Mahoney will not look kindly on—on you striking out you own like this."  
  
"That would be true if he knew anything about it," Sonny agreed. "But since he doesn't—" Sonny finished the sentence with a shrug. He walked over to Hutch's desk, took the bullets from the top drawer, and began replacing them in the gun. "So you're going to pick up the phone, call down to your car, and tell your bodyguards to come back up here. And if you don't, Kenny here is going to shoot you in the foot." The gun now fully loaded, he took out a silencer and screwed it on.  
  
Gunther was still staring at Hutch's gun. It was hard not to pull the trigger, but the time wasn't right yet. "And if I refuse?" Still with that air of superiority. It would be gone soon, Hutch told himself.  
  
"I hope you do; I've got fifty bucks says you'll have to have bullets in five body parts before you'll make that call. Kenny says it won't take more than three. But Kenny's got a whole box of ammo, and we can always change our bets, right?" Sonny looked at Hutch, smiling.  
  
"Sure, it was just a friendly wager."  
  
Gunther picked up the receiver, dialed a number. After a moment he said, "Tell them to come back up." He put the receiver back.  
  
Sonny waited at the door for the two bodyguards to return. They weren't expecting anything and Sonny shot them as they came into the apartment. He put an extra bullet in each of their heads, just to be on the safe side. "WASP bodyguards," Sonny said with disgust. "All show and no go. No offense," he added to Hutch, who just shook his head.  
  
Gunther watched without saying a word. It finally seemed to be dawning on him that he wasn't going to be able to get out of this. "Hutchinson," he said, and now Hutch's name caught in his throat. "You know how much money I have—"  
  
"How much money does he have?" Sonny asked. He came back to sit to next to Hutch.  
  
"A lot. He's richer than God."  
  
"I could make you rich," Gunther went on. "I could make both of you rich—"  
  
"I'm already rich," Hutch said, almost amused. "What about you, _Salvatore_? You hurting for dough?" The Salvatore was payback for Kenny.  
  
"I could always use some more," Sonny admitted. He reached over and removed the envelope from Gunther's pocket. "Oh, look, here's some now." He looked inside the envelope. "You're right, he **is** rich. Too bad some things aren't for sale." He threw the envelope on the floor and put his hand on Hutch's thigh, stroking it.  
  
And Hutch pulled the trigger. It hit Gunther in the left lung and he went down. "Tell me what he's feeling," Hutch asked Sonny.  
  
"He feels like someone's shoved a red hot spike into his chest. Hurts like hell. He's breathing as hard as he can, but he can't get enough air; it's like he's underwater, only the water's thick and hot. It's scary," Sonny admitted. They watched for a while—Hutch wasn't sure how long. Then he pulled the trigger again. Sonny left, saying something about Chinese food, telling Hutch not to shoot again until he came back, and Hutch didn't, he just watched. "If there was anybody here who loved you—if there **was** anybody who loved you—they'd be trying to stop the bleeding, pressing on the wounds. But nobody's going to do that for you, and not just because I'd kill anybody who tried. If anybody loved you, they'd be seeing the whole world turn red. The whole world; no matter where they went. Do you know what it's like to have the whole world bloodstained?" and suddenly he was crying, his sobs drowning out the wet sounds Gunther was making.  
  
The next thing Hutch knew, Sonny had his arm around him. "No more blood. I don't want any more blood. The whole world is red!"  
  
"You're out of your mind," said Sonny his voice soft.  
  
"Is he drowning?" Hutch asked suddenly. His voice sounded strange to his own ears. The world had gone from red to black-and-white, like that old joke, badly mangled.  
  
"On his own blood," Sonny agreed. He picked up one of the little cardboard cartons sitting on them the coffee table. Hutch hadn't noticed when Sonny had put them there. He plucked a shrimp from the box and put it to Hutch's lips. Hutch took it in his mouth, grabbed Sonny's wrist and licked his fingers. Sonny disentangled his hand, fed Hutch another shrimp, and another. Eventually the room became quiet: silent as death. Still, they watched.  
  
"I read Terranova's fortune cookie," Sonny said.  
  
"Was my name mentioned?" Hutch asked.  
  
Sonny laughed, but didn't answer.  
  
*  
  
Hutch didn't sleep on the way back east. He sat with his eyes closed while they took off, until Sonny said, "You don't have to pretend to be asleep; you don't have to talk if you don't want to."  
  
"I don't," Hutch said. "Not now."  
  
Sonny closed his eyes, put his seat back. Hutch stared out the window and talked to Starsky in his mind as the stewardess brought him another drink. Sonny had told her when they boarded to give him anything he wanted.  
  
He didn't plead or beg, babe. He just kind of gurgled, and eventually Sonny shot him some more and he died. While we were waiting for—while we were waiting, Sonny went out for food—he hit that same Chinese place you went to that time we both got so sick. I didn't think not to warn him— It was okay this time. The garlic shrimp was pretty good.  
  
I don't know how long it took; I was watching him, not the clock. But we sat there watching the whole time. Your blood sacrifice.  
  
_You've gone over the edge, Blondie. Way past the edge._  
  
No kidding. I'm out over the edge, standing on solid nothing. As long as I don't look down, I'll be fine. He paused, watching clouds. I wanted to save him, I wanted—let me tell you what happened.  
  
_Tell me everything,_ Starsky said, in his whisper-in-the-dark voice.  
  
I wanted to kill Terranova because—  
  
_You can say it,_ Starsky encouraged.  
  
Because I could see you in his eyes, because I felt like he could see me. But it was too dark.  
  
_What?_  
  
It was too dark, it—I couldn't see the blood, I needed— Since you died, all I've been able to see is blood, your blood, everywhere! But when I cut a man's throat, all I saw was chocolate syrup. It didn't help.  
  
With McPike, it was better. I turned on every light in the room, and when the blood began, it— For the first time, the world looked like what I saw every second.  
  
_And McPike's screams?_ Starsky asked gently.  
  
They drowned out the ones in my head. My own screams, he didn't add. Starsky hadn't screamed; Starsky had just died. Hutch rested his head against the window. I never wanted him to stop screaming.  
  
_Babe—_ Starsky's voice was reproving.  
  
No! You left me here alone— **you don't get a say**!  
  
_Do you think **I** wanted to?_  
  
**I** held on for **you** when I didn't think I could—would you have stayed if I'd written my name in lipstick on the tomato?  
  
_Yeah, but only to kick your ass for writing on my car. C'm'on, Blondie, you know I'd never leave you—I never will._  
  
_When Gunther, when he was lying there bled out, I stepped in the blood. And when I looked back at my footprints—I couldn't see the red. There wasn't any red, it was chocolate sauce. In the clear light of day. The red was gone._ Hutch fingered his tie. _This tie Steelgrave bought me—I thought it was red—_ He stared down at the indigo silk.  
  
_Over the edge, babe. Like Captain Jim._  
  
Hutch shook his head, but he could feel the tears coming. What should I do? he pleaded silently. What should I do?  
  
_You know what to do; you've always known. You know where to get the stuff, and you know how to use it. You need to be with me—_  
  
"Yes," Hutch said aloud, downed the drink the stewardess had brought him. "Yes. Yes."  
  
The plane was touching down, and Sonny was awake looking at him. "What's that thing you keep saying, about Sicilians and death?"  
  
"'Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line,'" Hutch quoted. He was feeling very peaceful. "It's from _The Princess Bride._ "  
  
Sonny shook his head. "Never heard of it."  
  
"Starsky loved that book. I never read it, but he kept reading me parts of it. For a month afterward, he kept talking about taking up fencing." Hutch looked at Sonny, thinking of Starsky's playful grace that could be so deadly, of Sonny's deadly grace and how it sometimes played.  
  
*  
  
Hutch was lying on the sofa, staring at the ceiling. The sofa, he had discovered, was a very pale gray; the apartment was not, in fact, decorated in shades of red. The knock at the door startled him; nobody knew he was there. He walked to the door and waited, wondering if it was maybe a new suit, but what did he need with a new suit? He waited until he heard Sonny's voice telling him to open up.  
  
"Since when do you knock?" Hutch asked, flinging the door open.  
  
"Brought you a present," Sonny answered, sauntering in. He tossed Hutch a copy of the day's New Jersey _Post_ and went to pour himself a drink. "Check this out."  
  
MISSING FED'S BODY FOUND, the headline read, and below that, _DA Sererra: "Mutilation work of a madman."_  
  
"Congratulations, you made the big time."  
  
"How'd it go?" Hutch asked.  
  
Sonny shrugged. He'd spent the day being grilled by cops, and he was tired and sore, and his joke hadn't gone over. "How're you going to do it?" he asked.  
  
Hutch came over to him, took him by the shoulders and walked him over to the window. He began rubbing his shoulders. Sonny could see Hutch's reflection in the glass, knew Hutch could see his.  
  
"Do what?" Hutch asked, and Sonny made a face at him.  
  
"Don't play dumb, and do **not** try to con me." His mood had gone from dreary to angry. "You're gonna go score someplace, some alley, then you're gonna—" Sonny couldn't go on. In the mirror he could see Hutch watching him, looking baffled.  
  
After a few minutes of watching Sonny watching the rain, Hutch moved away to the other side of the room. "Would you rather I did it in your nice, clean hotel?" he asked. If he'd been closer, Sonny would have knocked him down. "Don't sweat it," Hutch said softly. "I'll take care of it, you won't be involved—"  
  
"Shut up!" Sonny yelled at him, and in a moment he had slammed out of the apartment.  
  
*  
  
Sonny was back late that night with dinner so lavish it should have included a couple of hookers and a blindfolded violinist. They had started off eating in silence, neither of them quite knowing what to say. The blood had been washed away, and somehow everything felt too sanitary for human contact.  
  
"You can't do it like that," Sonny said abruptly just as Hutch had picked up his spoon to eat his sorbet. Hutch frowned, wondering if Sonny wanted him to eat **this** dessert with his fingers, too. Then he realized what Sonny was talking about.  
  
"It's not your problem," Hutch insisted. "Just gimme a day to sleep all this off and I'll be out of your hair."  
  
Sonny shook his head in disgust, but he changed the subject. "I'm gonna marry Theresa." A stranger, talking to another stranger in a waiting room.  
  
"Yeah, that's a good idea. Get married, have kids, be happy. Somebody ought to be happy; why shouldn't it be you?"  
  
"You could . . . ." Sonny's voice trailed off.  
  
Hutch glanced up and caught Sonny's eyes. "No, I can't. Really, I just can't. Even talking without him doesn't seem worth it anymore. I almost wish I'd let Gunther—"  
  
"Don't even say that," Sonny snapped at him.  
  
"Sonny, just let it go. It'll be better for both of us and you know it." He stopped again, fixed his gaze on his hands, which had not moved.  
  
They ate their sorbet, drank their coffee. "Let me take care of it for you," Sonny said quietly. Hutch tried to argue with him, but Sonny wouldn't listen. "C'm'on, let me do it for you. No dirty alleys and I know how to make it painless."  
  
"All right." And then he added, "Thank you."  
  
*  
  
In the morning Sonny sent Hutch for a walk on the beach, and by the time he got back everything was ready. His doctor friend was very accommodating. Sonny led him into his bedroom where there was an IV pole had been set up, a bag of clear fluid hanging from it. Everything else Sonny needed was laid out on the bedside table.  
  
"When does the busty nurse in the short uniform show up?" Hutch asked, and Sonny forced a smile.  
  
"Knew I forgot something."  
  
"Oh, well," Hutch waved it away. "Maybe next time. What do you want me to do?"  
  
"Lie down, get comfortable," Sonny said, and when Hutch had, he sat down next to him on the bed.  
  
Hutch motioned toward the bag of fluid. "What is it?"  
  
"Sodium Pentothal. It's sweet, and fast. You go to sleep and just don't wake up. You won't even know when it hits. You don't get drowsy or anything."  
  
"Sound like you've had some experience."  
  
"Some surgery, yeah. Long time ago." Sonny was holding a hypodermic in his hands, just staring at it. "First comes the topical, but before that I've got a question. I can put it in your arm or in your throat. Which do you want?"  
  
"What's the difference?" Hutch asked.  
  
"In the throat's a little riskier, more chance of a blood clot, but it's faster. In the arm . . . it's kind of like giving blood. Takes longer to work."  
  
Hutch looked at his arm, thought about Monk and those goons holding him down, forcing the needle in. "And the blood clot would . . . ?"  
  
Sonny smiled ruefully. "Yeah, you got a point. Turn your head and keep still." Hutch did as instructed and Sonny jabbed him with the needle, pushed the plunger.  
  
"Tell me about Theresa," Hutch said suddenly.  
  
"What about her?" Sonny was rubbing Hutch's throat where he'd given him the injection, helping the drug to do its thing.  
  
"Who is she? Why her?"  
  
"I've known her since she was a little girl. Her family's—her family's the right one. She'd make me a great wife. She could help me run an empire."  
  
"Do you love her?"  
  
Sonny didn't want to answer that question. "Can you feel my fingers?"  
  
"No, I don't think no . . . . Does she love you?"  
  
That question was better. "Oh, yeah." In spite of himself Sonny smiled.  
  
Hutch turned his head to look at Sonny. He was smiling, too. "Good."  
  
"Turn your head back," Sonny instructed, guiding him with one firm hand to his cheek. "Now shut up and lay still."  
  
Hutch obeyed, staring at the wall.  
  
Sonny ran his fingers down Hutch's throat a couple of times, experimentally. "Take a deep breath," he told Hutch, and when Hutch exhaled, Sonny slid the needle in. "Don't move," he said, taping securely in place.  
  
"What else?"  
  
"Else?" Sonny asked, distracted. He was trying to connect the IV bag to the catheter, but he was having trouble; his hands didn't want to cooperate. They wanted to shake, or touch the blond hair, or— "What do you mean, else?"  
  
"About Theresa. Why her?"  
  
"She—she's right for me." Finally'd got them connected. Only one thing left to do.  
  
"Is that it?" Hutch asked.  
  
"'It'? You think there's more?" Sonny was irrationally, out-of-control angry, but what could he do with that anger? His—friend was about to die. There was no place to put the anger, so he kept it to himself. "She's right for me," he said again. "She'll keep me from going over the edge." Very quietly he added, "I won't be alone." He reached over and flipped the hep lock open.  
  
Hutch's nod was compromised by the needle. "I'd ask for a last kiss," he said, awkwardly off-hand, "but that's supposed to wake you up, not put you out, and you would have gone to all this trouble for nothing."  
  
"Hilarious," Sonny said tightly. "You missed your calling, you should'a done stand-up."  
  
"Too late now. I don't think I can stand up."  
  
Sonny was feeling sick, claustrophobically alone. _I'll call Theresa. As soon as this is done, I'll call—_  
  
Hutch had taken Sonny's hand and was pressing it to his chest, speaking only with the beating of his heart. His eyes were closed. After a little bit the fingers holding Sonny's hand went lax, and in a moment the beating stopped, too.  
  
Sonny sat not moving his hand, looking at Hutch, trying to understand what he was feeling. It was, he thought, the only time he'd seen the man look happy.


End file.
